BS  2555  .M64  1913 

Moffatt,  James,  1870- 

The  theology  of  the  Gospels 


STUDIES   IN  THEOLOGY 

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The  Christian  Hope:  A  Study  in  the  Doctrine  of 
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The  Theology  of  the  Gospels 

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IN  PREPARATION 

A  Critical  Introduction  to  the  Old  Testament 

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THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


\ 


t^* 


*  I  wrote  with  my  pencil  in  my  Common  Prayer  Book — 

Vita  ordinanda.    .  .  ^ 

Biblia  legenda. 
Theologiae  opera  danda. 
Serviendum  et  Igietandum. 
Scrupulis  obsistendum.' 

Dr.  Johnson. 


THE    THEOLOGY    OF 
THE    GOSPELS 

/  BY 

JAMES    MOFFATT,    D.D.,   D.  LiTT. 

YATES   PROFESSOR   OF    NEW   TESTAMENT   GREEK    AND   EXEGESIS 
MANSFIELD   COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1913 


TO 
MY  COLLEAGUES  IN  MANSFIELD 


PREFACE 

The  bulk  of  the  following  pages  formed  the  sub- 
stance of  a  course  of  lectures  which  I  had  the  honour 
of  deUvering  under  the  Alexander  Robertson  Trust 
in  the  University  of  Glasgow,  during  January  and 
February  of  this  year.  In  working  over  the  materials 
afresh  for  the  purpose  of  pubhcation  I  have  made 
considerable  additions  to  the  argument  at  various 
points,  but,  even  so,  the  volume  is  not  a  classified 
survey  of  the  various  theological  and  religious  con- 
ceptions which  may  be  found  within  the  compass 
of  the  gospels.  My  aim  has  been  different.  What 
these  pages  attempt  to  do  is  to  present  a  study  of 
the  central  and  salient  features  in  the  theology  of 
the  gospels,  taking  theology  in  its  stricter  rather 
than  in  its  wider  sense.  The  standpoint  for  estimat- 
ing the  characteristic  position  of  the  gospels  in  the 
development  of  primitive  Christian  reflection  is 
determined  by  the  message  and  personality  of 
Jesus.  The  gospels  voice  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ 
in  different  keys,  but  the  theme  of  their  fugue-hke 
variations  is  never  forgotten  amid  all  their  windings, 
and  it  ought  to  be  dominant  in  any  study  of  their 
symphonies.  Angelology  and  almsgiving,  for 
example,  enter  into  the  religious  scope  of  the  gospels, 
but  such  notes  only  sound  in  relation  to  the  con- 
trolling theme  which  uses  them  in  its  larger  chords. 
When  Paul  spoke  to  the  Athenians,  he  took  his 


X  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

text  from  an  inscription  on  some  local  altar,  to  an 
unknown  god.  He  began  by  assuring  his  audience 
that  he  could  tell  them  what  they  were  worshipping 
in  devout  ignorance,  and  tried  in  this  way  to  get  a 
hearing  for  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  According  to  a 
Greek  bishop  of  the  tenth  century,  who  wrote  a 
commentary  on  Acts,  the  inscription  dated  from  a 
complaint  of  Pan  that  the  Athenians  had  neglected 
to  acknowledge  him.  Consequently,  after  winning 
a  victory  over  the  Persians  with  the  help  of  Pan, 
they  erected  an  altar  to  him,  and  in  order  to  guard 
against  any  similar  danger  in  other  directions  if 
they  neglected  a  god  who  was  imknown  to  them, 
*  they  erected  that  altar  with  the  inscription  to  an 
unknown  god,  meaning  "  in  case  there  is  some  other 
god  whom  we  do  not  know,  be  this  erected  by  us 
in  his  honour,  that  he  may  be  gracious  to  us  though 
he  is  not  worshipped  by  us  owing  to  our  ignorance."  ' 
It  is  not  clear  where  CEcumenius  got  this  story  about 
the  origin  of  the  Athenian  altar,  but  it  supplies  an 
apt  setting  for  the  argument  of  the  apostle's  address. 
Paul  did  not  mean  that  Jesus  was  a  divine  being 
who  was  required  to  make  their  pantheon  complete. 
BUs  point  was  that  the  religion  which  he  preached 
in  the  name  of  Jesus  was  one  which  left  no  such 
blank  spaces  in  the  universe,  no  tracts  of  experience 
where  human  life  was  exposed  to  unknown  powers 
of  hfe  and  death,  over  which  the  God  of  Jesus  did 
not  avail  to  exercise  control.  Unluckily  he  was 
interrupted  before  he  could  develop  his  argument, 
but  his  epistles  show  how  he  would  probably  have 
worked  out  the  relations  of  the  Christian  God  to 
the  imiverse  of  men  and  things.  Now  this  also  is 
the   motive   which   underlies   the   theology   of   the 


PREFACE  xi 

gospels  ;  as  the  tradition  develops,  even  prior  to 
the  climax  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  we  can  feel  the 
instinctive  desire  to  present  Jesus  as  adequate  to 
all  the  needs  of  the  human  soul,  and  to  state  His 
revelation  in  such  a  way  as  to  cover  the  entire 
experience  of  believing  men.  The  messianic  cate- 
gories naturally  tended  at  first  to  make  the  range 
of  this  interest  religious  rather  than  cosmic, — if  we 
may  use  an  antithesis  which  is  convenient  but  not 
accurate.  So  far  as  apocalyptic  took  account  of  the 
universe,  it  had  a  short  and  sharp  solution.  Yet 
even  within  the  earlier  phases  of  the  synoptic 
theology  it  is  possible  to  detect  the  implicit  convic- 
tion that  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  has  cleared  up  the 
religious  situation  of  men  and  made  the  world  an 
intelligible  unity.  The  genesis  of  this  conviction 
hes  in  the  faith  of  Jesus  Himself.  The  interest  of 
the  gospels,  in  the  aspect  of  their  theological  develop- 
ment, is  the  deepening  appreciation  of  the  signifi- 
cance which  attaches  to  His  personaUty  ;  from  one 
side  and  another  they  witness  consciously  and 
unconsciously  to  the  belief  that  Jesus  is  Lord  of 
all  powers  visible  and  invisible,  and  that  to  worship 
the  God  and  Father  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  to 
be  freed  for  ever  from  that  ignorance  of  the  world 
which  haunts  men  with  a  variety  of  superstitious 
fears. 

It  is  in  the  fight  of  this  fundamental  and  charac- 
teristic motive  that  the  theology  of  the  gospels 
reveals  its  vital  unity  amid  the  variations  wliich 
catch  the  eye  upon  the  surface  of  their  pages.  The 
differences  between  them  are  little,  compared  to 
the  difference  between  them  and  what  followed  or 
preceded  them.     Any  text-book  of  the  New  Testa- 


xii  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

ment  theology  provides  some  account  of  the  Jewish 
presuppositions  and  environment  of  Jesus,  then  an 
outHne  of  His  teaching  on  the  basis  of  what  are 
considered  to  be  the  authentic  materials  extant  in 
the  synoptic  sources  or  traditions,  thirdly  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  apostolic  theology  which  has  blended 
with  the  preaching  of  Jesus  in  the  records,  and  finally, 
a  special  section  on  the  Fourth  gospel  which  dis- 
criminates the  characteristic  theology  of  that 
writing  from  the  sjmoptic  tradition,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  Paulinism  upon  the  other,  with  an  attempt, 
depending  for  its  positive  results  upon  the  author's 
critical  position,  to  distinguish  what  (if  any)  are 
the  authentic  sayings  and  thoughts  of  Jesus  which 
may  be  embedded  in  the  Johannine  interpretation. 
It  is  a  method  of  procedure  which  has  its  own 
advantages,  but  I  have  no  intention  of  handhng  the 
materials  on  such  lines.  This  is  not  a  handbook 
to  the  gospels,  nor  a  study  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
nor  an  outline  of  Christian  dogma.  The  following 
pages  contain  no  more  than  a  group  of  studies,  and 
they  are  grouped  in  order  to  be  as  far  as  possible 
genetic  and  compact.  Whether  this  attempt  to 
reset  the  salient  data  is  pronounced  successful  or 
not,  I  am  convinced  that  it  is  more  suitable  to  the 
plan  of  the  present  series  than  the  conventional 
arrangement  of  the  text-books.  The  index  at  the 
end  of  the  volume  and  the  outline  of  contents  pre- 
fixed to  each  chapter,  will  enable  the  reader  to  find 
any  topic  or  passage  without  loss  of  time. 

JAMES  MOFFATT. 
Oxford,  July  1,  1912. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAO> 

THE   GOSPELS  AND  THEIR   THEOLOGY,      ....  1 

Instinctive  objection  to  tlie  association  of  theology  and  the 

gospels. 
Various  reasons  for  this  feeling. 
In  what  sense  theology  is  organic  to  the  gospels. 
Different  senses  in  which  the  four  gospels  are  theological. 
The  problem  of  tendency  and  interpretation : 

(i)  Practical, 
(ii)  Speculative. 
Further  problems : 
(a)  Is  there  a  theology  of  the  gospels  as  distinct  from 
the  rest  of  the  New  Testament  ? 
The  relation  of  Paulinism  to  the  gospels. 
(6)  Is  the  theology  of  the  gospels  a  unity  ?    The  synoptic 
gospels  and  the  Fourth. 

(c)  Is  the  canonical  text  of  the  gospels  free  from  later 

doctrinal  modification? 

(d)  Was  the    theology  of  the    gospels    affected    by  the 

passage  from  Aramaic  into  Greek  ? 

The  common  element  in  the  theology  of  the  gospels. 
Distinctive  features  of  the  gospels  as  gospels. 
Specific  character  of  their  *  theology. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ESCHATOLOOT   OF   THE   GOSPELS,      .  ...         41 


How  far  is  the  theology  an  eschatology  ? 
Recent  research  into  this  question. 


zUi 


xiv  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

PAGE 

The  problem  synoptic  rather  than  Johannine. 
Definition  of  apocalyptic  element,  in  view  of — 

(a)  Sayings  which  involve  that  the  'kingdom'  was  in  a 

sense  present,  as  well  as  future,  for  Jesus. 

(b)  Significance  of  prayer,  in  this  connection. 

(c)  Significance  of  the  ethical  teaching  of  Jesus,  in  rela- 

tion to  his  eschatology. 
Meaning    of   the     'kingdom,'    present    and    future;    the 
antinomy  presented  by  the  evidence  of  the  gospels  on 
this  point. 

Solutions  of  the  antinomy : — 

(i)  The   influence    of  the    apostolic    church.     The 

'tendency'  solution, 
(ii)  Varying  emphasis   on   eschatology   at   different 
periods  in  the  life  of  Jesus.     The  'biographical  * 
solution. 
(iii)  Element  of  pictorial  language  in  the  teaching 
of  Jesus.     The  '  literary '  solution. 
Transmutation  of  eschatology  by  Jesus. 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  GOD  OF  JESTJS, 85 

Practical  interests  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  about  God : 

(a)  The  Fatherhood  and  providence. 

Not  a  justification  of  idleness  or  recklessness. 

(b)  The  Fatherhood  and  the  kingdom. 
Relation  to  the  divine  purpose. 

(c)  Relation  to  the  miracles. 
God  and  nature. 

The  transcendental  and  the  immanent  God. 

The  divine  presence  mediated  through  Christ. 

Jesus  and  current  Jewish  titles  of  God. 

His  avoidance  of  the  term  'Holy,'  and  its  significance. 

The  'righteousness '  of  God  as  the  Father,  involving  love. 

Further  implications  of  this : 

(i)  The  self-sacrifice  of  the  divine  love. 
(ii)  Unique  manifestation  of  this  in  the  person  an 
vocation  of  the  Son. 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGE 

iii)  The  relation  of  the  Father  to  human  sin. 

(iv)  The  severity  and  majesty  of  God  as  Father. 
The   function    of  the  Son  in    the   Father's 
order    of  judgment,   penitence,   and   for- 
giveness. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   PERSON   OF   JESUS, t  •      127 

The  coming  of  Jesus  an  epoch. 

Significance  of  his  personality  in  the  light  of 

(a)  His  divine  sonship  : 

Development  of   the    tradition,   through    the  birth- 
stories  to  the  Fourth  gospel. 

(b)  The  '  Servant  of  Yahveh '  prophecies : 
Directions  of  this  influence. 

(c)  The  '  Son  of  man '  tradition : 

Linguistic  problem  connected  with  this  title. 

Synoptic  data  and  their  significance. 
{d)  The  '  Son  of  David"  title. 
(e)  The  '  Beloved '  as  a  messianic  title. 
(/)  The  '  Lord '  as  a  divine  title. 
{g)  The  synoptic  category  of  '  Wisdom. 
(A)  The  Johannine  category  of  the  Logos. 

Belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ:  inner  development. 

The  common  elements  of  the  christology  of  the  first  three 

gospels  and  the  Fourth. 
Summary. 

CHAPTER  V 

THE   SPIRIT  OF  JESUS,    .......      177 

Meaning  of  the  '  Spirit '  in  connection  with  Jesus. 
Only  two  references  in  his  teaching : 

(i)  The  Holy  Spirit  and  his  own  vocation, 
(ii)  The  Spirit  in  tlie  witness  of  the  disciples  before  hostile 
tribunals. 


xvi  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

PAOB 

When  did  Jesus  impart  the  Spirit  to  the  disciples? 

View  of  the  Fourth  gospel. 

Development  of  the  conception  in  the  Fourth  gospel : 

(a)  The  Paraclete. 

(&)  The  Spirit  of  truth. 

(c)  In  relation  to  baptism. 

(d)  In  relation  to  the  Lord's  Supper. 
{e)  In  relation  to  the  person  of  Christ. 

The  synoptic  and  the  Johannine  views. 
Conclusion. 

BIBLIOGRAFHT,         ,  ,  .  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,211 

INDEX^  ....,,•.      215 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY 

*  The  theology  of  the  gospels ! '  some  will  exclaim 
in  dismay,  '  and  we  verily  thought  the  gospels  were 
a  refuge  from  theology ! '  This  is  an  attitude 
towards  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  and  its  records 
with  which  it  is  often  impossible  not  to  feel  a  certain 
sympathy.  To  be  deep  in  the  history  of  the  church, 
and  especially  of  its  creeds,  is  for  many  just  persons 
to  acquire  a  more  or  less  legitimate  suspicion  of 
theology  in  connection  with  the  vital  rehgion  which 
breathes  upon  them  as  they  turn  back  to  the  simple 
pages  of  the  gospels.  They  know,  or  think  they 
know,  what  theology  has  been  and  done  ;  in  a  number 
of  cases  its  services  to  Christianity  seem  to  have 
been  accompanied  by  results  which  are  irrelevant, 
if  not  positively  injurious,  to  such  faith  in  the  Hving 
Christ  as  the  gospels  commend ;  its  associations 
have  been  so  generally  with  intellectuahsm  and 
formahsm,  with  a  stereotyped  presentation  of  the 
Christian  religion  in  the  phraseology  and  categories 
of  some  philosophical  system,  which  rapidly  became 
a  source  of  embarrassment  to  ordinary  people,  that 
it  is  not  altogether  surprising  to  catch  a  persistent 
sense  of  relief  in  the  popular  conviction  that  the 

▲ 


2  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

gospels  at  any  rate  leave  no  room  for  the  intrusion 
of  theology,  and  at  the  same  time  to  detect  a 
corresponding  sense  of  resentment  when  that  con- 
viction is  challenged  or  modified.  Nearly  forty 
years  ago  a  German  critic  published  a  rather  bitter 
and  despairing  monograph  upon  what  he  called 
Die  Ghristlichkeit  der  heutigen  Theologie}  His  thesis 
was  that  theology  had  invariably  played  the  traitor 
to  Christianity,  that  no  theology  could  be  called 
Christian,  and  that  theology  had,  in  fact,  destroyed 
the  Christian  religion.  The  spirit  of  this  protest 
is  shared  by  many  who  would  not  agree  with  its 
arguments  or  objects.  So  far  as  the  New  Testament 
is  concerned,  they  would  be  perfectly  wilhng  to 
let  Paul's  theology  go,  but  they  would  claim  the 
gospels  as  documents  of  religion  and  not  of  theology, 
documents  of  the  faith  in  its  pure,  pre-theological 
phase.  Theology  is  the  theory  of  a  religion  ;  it 
stands  to  personal  faith  as  the  theory  of  aesthetics 
stands  to  poetry,  as  botany  to  life  in  the  field  or 
garden.  Theology  is  listening  to  what  man  has  to 
say  about  God ;  personal  religion,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  man  listening  to  God,  and  this  is  what  the 
gospels  mean.  To  speak  of  '  the  theology  of  the 
gospels '  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  reasonable  to  speak  of  the 
theology  of  the  gospels.  There  is  theology  behind 
even  their  most  spontaneous  pages,  and  they  do 
not  cease  on  that  account  to  be  gospels.  We  may 
even  add,  it  is  because  they  mirror  an  experience 
which  tends  to  become  conscious  of  its  issues  in 
history  and  nature,  that  they  are  gospels. 

1  A  second  edition  of  F.  Overbeck's  essay  (1879)  "vras  issued  la 
1903. 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY  3 

The  reluctance  to  admit  this  is  based  upon  an 
antipathy  to  theology  in  general,  wliich  is  not 
unintelligible,  and  which  is  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  place  of  the  unlearned.  Theologies  have 
tended  to  insist  upon  the  acceptance  of  doctrines 
as  if  they  possessed  some  virtue  in  themselves  which 
enabled  them  to  become  practically  a  substitute 
for  the  life  of  personal  experience  which  they  in- 
terpret. Is  it  so  with  the  theology  of  the  gospels  ? 
Upon  the  contrary,  the  reverse  is  the  case.  Such 
a  tendency  may  be  felt,  it  is  true,  within  the  theology 
of  the  Fourth  gospel,  but  the  motto  for  all  the 
four  gospels  might  be  found  not  unfairly  in  the 
words  used  by  the  writer  of  the  Fourth  to  define 
his  purpose  :  These  are  tvritten  that  you  may  believe 
that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that 
believing  you  may  have  life  in  his  Name?-  They  are 
interpretations  of  Christ,  written  from  faith  and 
for  faith,  in  order  to  inspire  and  instruct  Christian 
life  within  the  churches ;  they  are  not  documents 
which  interpose  doctrines  between  the  soul  and 
Jesus.  From  one  point  of  view  it  is  hardly  adequate 
or  even  accurate  to  speak  about  '  the  testimony  '  of 
the  gospels.  That  phrase  suggests  a  subject  or 
person  who  is  in  need  of  testimony,  whose  character 
and  claims  require  to  be  authenticated  before  a 
suspicious  and  uncertain  audience.  Now,  it  is 
true  that  there  is  an  apologetic  element  in  the 
gospels  which  corresponds  to  this  idea.  They  are 
written  in  several  instances  with  a  view  to  objections 
felt  by  the  Jewish,  Jewish  -  Christian,  or  Greek 
world  of  the  day ;  there  was  the  Jewish  faith 
with  an  uncrucified  messiah,  for  example,  and  the 

1  John  XX.    1. 


4  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Greek  with  no  messiah  at  alL  But  fundamentally 
their  audience  is  one  of  those  who  believe  already, 
and  the  doubts  and  uncertainties  which  they  essay 
to  remove  are  occasioned  by  the  relation  of  human 
faith  to  Christ.  Their  best  apologetic  is  the  positive 
confession  of  their  faith.  So  far  as  they  introduce 
doctrines,  it  is  to  confirm  that  faith  by  drawing  out 
its  basis  in  the  person  of  Christ,  and  by  thus  proving 
it  is  more  than  a  pious  intuition.  The  underlying 
principle  is  that  personal  belief  in  Christ  carries 
with  it  convictions  of  His  relation  to  God  and  the 
world  which  are  organic  to  the  rehgious  experience. 
Even  their  theology,  such  as  it  is,  may  be  said  to 
be  implicit  rather  than  explicit,  for  the  most  part, 
until  we  come  to  the  Fourth  gospel,  where  a  special 
interpretation  of  the  person  of  Christ,  semi-philo- 
sophic, semi-mystical,  hes  on  the  surface  of  the 
record  as  well  as  of  the  prologue.  In  the  synoptic 
gospels  what  we  see  are  behefs  in  action,  or  actions 
which  involve  certain  behefs.  Jesus  does  not  teach 
any  summa  theologiae.  He  acts  for  God  and  teaches 
about  God  with  an  underived  note  of  authority. 
His  presence  sets  in  motion  a  common  hfe  which  is 
determined  by  His  revelation  of  God's  character 
and  purpose,  and  the  churches  in  which  and  for  which 
the  gospels  were  written  were  not  schools  of 
theology,  but  communities  organised  for  the  worship 
of  God  and  the  service  of  His  kingdom  in  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Nevertheless,  the  most  elementary 
and  spontaneous  experience  of  the  Christian  rehgion, 
then  as  now,  involved  what  may  be  termed  without 
inaccuracy  dogmatic  or  theological  conceptions. 
When  Paul  reminded  the  Christians  of  Corinth 
that  the  first  principles  of  their  faith  included  a 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY  5 

belief  that  Christ  had  died  for  their  sins  according 
to  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  he  was  not 
expressing  a  Pauline  theologumenon,  but  a  behef 
without  which  there  would  have  been  no  Christianity 
at  all.  It  is  difficult  even  for  the  simple  piety 
which  with  a  sure  instinct  finds  its  way  to  the  direct 
and  vital  passages  of  revelation  in  the  gospels,  to 
ignore  the  fact  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  does  involve 
a  theology  of  some  kind.^  It  meets  us  on  the  very 
threshold  of  Matthew  and  Luke,  to  say  nothing  of 
John.2  Even  in  what  is  sometimes  regarded  as 
the  most  human  and  realistic  of  the  gospels  the 
reader  comes  upon  a  divine  voice  and  vision  at  the 
baptism,  the  personahty  of  Satan,  and  the  environ- 
ment of  unclean  spirits  in  disease,  before  he  reaches 
the  end  of  the  first  chapter  in  Mark.  Something 
has  to  be  made  of  all  this.  We  must  come  to  terms 
with  the  problems  started  by  designations  like 
The  Son  of  God,  the  Son  of  man,  the  Logos,  and  the 
Spirit.  Whether  these  are  retained  or  dropped, 
in  either  case  there  is  a  pronouncement  upon  Jesus 
and  early  Christianity  which  has  to  justify  itself 
before  the  criticism  of  the  records  and  the  larger 
criticism  of  the  Christian  consciousness. 

There  is  also  a  natural  impatience  and  suspicion 
of  theology  not  only  as  irrelevant  if  not  injurious  to 
the  Christian  heart,  but  as  an  invasion  of  the  rights 
which  belong  to  the  mind.  Christian  theology  has 
sometimes  been  presented  in  ways  which  threaten 

1  'The  word  "God"  is  a  Theology  in  itself  (Newman,  The  Idea 
of  a  University,  p.  26). 

2  A  theology  implies  a  philosophy,  in  the  sense  that  it  presupposes 
gome  theory  of  knowledge  and  therefore  of  personality.  The  Fourth 
gospel,  from  this  point  of  view,  has  a  much  more  articulate  theology 
than  its  predecessors. 


6  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

to  foreclose  the  inquiry  and  activity  of  thought  by 
elevating  the  phraseology  of  some  particular  age 
to  a  position  of  finality.  How  does  the  study  of 
the  theology  of  the  gospels  bear  upon  this  objection  ? 
In  the  first  instance,  it  reveals  a  rich  and  flexible 
variety  of  conceptions  which  proves  that  the  primitive 
church  was  not  committed  to  any  stereotyped  theory 
of  the  person  of  Christ  in  relation  to  God  and  the 
world.  In  the  second  instance,  the  gospels  afford 
a  standard  and  a  spirit  for  that  revision  and  re- 
adjustment of  Christian  theology  which  is  from 
time  to  time  the  duty  of  the  living  Church.  The 
gospels  are  a  refuge  from  theologies  which  have 
ceased  to  represent  the  Christian  experience  with 
adequate  fulness  and  accuracy.  But  they  are  not  a 
refuge  from  theology,  except  when  theology  either 
lifts  some  transient  element  to  a  position  of  primacy 
or  imposes  upon  the  gospels  the  schemes  of  a  later 
fashion  in  philosophy. 

The  former  danger  is  always  with  us.  The 
theology  of  the  gospels,  like  the  theology  of  any 
age  or  movement,  is  related  to  the  contemporary 
conceptions  of  the  world  and  of  God  ;  it  is  moulded 
and  coloured  by  current  ideas  of  nature  and  the 
supernatural,  otherwise  it  would  have  been  un- 
intelligible and  ineffective  for  its  period.  But  it 
embodies  classic  and  fundamental  elements  to  which 
these  are  not  essential,  and  for  which  fresh  expressions 
can  be  found,  more  consonant  with  the  advance  of 
knowledge  and  experience.  This  means  more  than 
the  fact  of  current  cosmic  and  psychological  beliefs 
entering  into  the  minds  of  those  who  transmitted 
the  tradition  of  Jesus  ;  it  means  that  they  formed 
part  of  the  religious  world  of  Jesus  Himself.     The 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY  7 

theology  of  Christianity  is  not  simply  a  transcript 
of  everything  that  Jesus  thought  and  said  about  the 
world.  There  are  elements  even  in  His  teaching,  e.g. 
on  demonology  and  eschatology,  which  have  not 
passed  over  into  our  world.  The  Fourth  gospel, 
with  its  characteristic  attitude  of  reticence  to  both 
of  these  elements,  is  enough  to  show  that  they  are 
not  vital  to  the  fundamental  beliefs  of  Christianity, 
and  that  they  may  be  dropped  or  modified  without 
loss  to  the  faith.  The  varying  emphasis  of  even 
the  synoptic  gospels  upon  certain  aspects  of  the 
person  of  Jesus  indicates  that  the  theology  of  the 
gospels  was  already  conscious  of  the  problem 
which  vexes  modern  theology  with  regard  to  the 
christological  issue,  and  that  it  anticipates  the  lines 
along  which  that  problem  is  to  be  met. 

The  second  of  the  two  dangers  which  have  been 
just  mentioned  is  equally  perennial.  There  is  a 
vivid  expression  of  it  in  one  of  Pascal's  private 
letters  to  a  novice  of  Port-Royal.^  He  quotes  from 
Mark  xiii.  14-15  :  When  you  see  the  abominable 
thing  in  the  place  where  it  ought  not  to  be,  then  let 
no  one  turn  back  to  his  house  to  take  anything  away. 
'  Mais  cette  parole  est  etonnante.  II  me  semble  que 
cela  predit  parfaitement  le  temps  ou  nous  sommes, 
ou  la  corruption  de  la  morale  est  aux  maisons  de 
saintete,  et  dans  les  Uvres  des  theologiens  et  des 
religieux  ou  elle  ne  devrait  pas  etre.'  The  whole 
chapter  seems  to  him  a  prediction  of  the  contemporary 
degradation  of  the  Christian  religion  in  the  Roman 
church  and  in  the  French  world  alike.  '  Ce  chapitre 
de  rfivangile,  que  je  voudrais  lire  avec  vous  tout 
entier,  finit  par  une  exhortation  a  veiller  et  a  prier 

1  Pensees  de  Pascal  (ed.  Havet),  ii.  pp.  341-2. 


8  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

pour  eviter  tous  ces  malheurs,  et  en  effet  il  est  bien 
juste  que  la  priere  soit  continuelle  quand  le  peril 
est  continue!.'  If  Pascal's  suspicion  of  theology 
was  justified  in  the  seventeenth  century,  it  has  been 
more  than  justified  since  then,  outside  as  well  as 
inside  the  church  of  Rome.  It  has  prompted  the 
movement  '  Back  to  Christ '  from  the  formulas  and 
speculations  which  had  usurped  the  place  of  Jesus 
in  the  mmds  of  His  people,  or,  in  Lessing's  neat 
antithesis,  from  the  Christian  religion  to  the  religion 
of  Christ.  One  drawback  to  this  movement  has 
been  that  in  casting  back  to  Christ,  or  rather  to  the 
Jesus  of  history,  moderns  have  often  taken  back  a 
Christ  of  their  own  creation,  a  conception  of  Jesus 
which  is  tacitly  read  into  the  gospels.  And  this 
error  is  bound  up  with  another,  with  the  failure  to 
see  that  the  very  contact  with  the  Jesus  of  the 
gospels  involves  a  theological  reconstruction^ — a 
reconstruction,  doubtless,  in  which  the  fundamental 
and  vital  factor  is  the  life  of  Christ,  not  any  doctrine 
about  His  person,  but  still  a  reconstruction  which 
calls  out  the  thoughts  of  faith,  '  thoughts  of  things 
which,'  in  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  phrase^  '  thoughts 
but  tenderly  touch.' 

From     the     standpoint     of     modem    theology  ^ 
Christocentric  views  may  be  as  logically  superseded 

1  In  the  sense  that  Christianity  cannot  remain  a  religion  of  intui- 
tions, without  reflection  upon  its  relation  to  life  and  nature.  Cf. 
Caird's  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Philosophers,  i.  6  f .  (*It 
has  never  been,  and  can  never  be,  a  religion  of  simple  faith  ;  or,  if  it 
ever  relapses  into  such  a  faith,  it  immediately  begins  to  lose  its 
spiritual  character,  and  to  assimilate  itself  to  religions  that  are  lower 
in  the  scale'). 

2  Cf.  Troeltsch,  Die  Bedeutung  der  Geschichtlichkeit  Jesu  f&r  den 
Glauben,  1911,  pp.  15  f. 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY  9 

as  geocentric  conceptions  in  cosmology  or  anthropo- 
centric  ideas  in  metaphysics,  but  the  theology  of  the 
gospels  represents  the  religious  interpretations  and 
experiences  of  men  within  the  apostolic  church 
for  whom  the  world  had  been  transformed  by  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  whom  the 
worship  and  service  of  God  had  become  a  new 
reality  through  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  The  data 
and  materials  of  this  theology  lie  in  the  divine 
revelation  made  through  Jesus  Christ.  It  is  the 
character  and  purpose  of  Christ,  His  personality, 
His  disclosure  of  the  divine  nature  in  word  and  deed, 
the  experiences  to  which  His  Spirit  gave  rise — it  is 
these  that  form  the  staple  of  any  theology  which 
we  find  within  the  gospels.^  Its  subject  and  object 
is  faith  as  a  moral  decision  evoked  by  the  call  and 
claim  of  Jesus  as  God's  Son.  A  theologian  ought 
therefore  to  feel  at  home  in  the  study  of  the  gospels, 
not  because  he  can  forget  for  a  little  that  he  is  a 

1  To  the  age  in  which  the  gospel  traditions  arose  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  a  rich  source  of  proof  for  the  Christian  attitude  to  Judaism, 
Jesus,  and  the  future.  The  evangelists  drew  upon  it  as  a  Christian 
book,  inspired  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  their  use  of  it  went  much 
further  than  the  appeal  to  prophecies  of  Christ.  But  (i)  Jesus  Him- 
self drew  upon  the  deeper  ideals  and  prophecies,  and  (ii)  the  attempt 
to  explain  large  sections  of  the  gospel  narratives  and  fundamental 
conceptions  of  Christ's  teaching  as  no  more  than  the  reproduction  of 
Old  Testament  passages  does  not  carry  us  very  far.  Tertullian's 
'  Lex  radix  evangelii '  is  an  epigram  rather  than  a  historical  estimate, 
and  as  for  the  narratives,  Wellhausen's  comment  (on  Mark  iv.  38) 
holds  good :  '  This  story  is  not  the  echo  of  the  story  of  Jonah.  It  is 
rarely  the  case  that  the  gospel  stories  owe  their  origin  to  Old  Testa- 
ment prototypes.  .  .  .  What  was  known  and  handed  down  about 
Jesus  really  did  not  agree  with  what  the  Old  Testament  contained 
about  the  messiah  and  what  the  Jews  expected  of  him  ;  it  was  only 
■with  difficulty  that  oue  could  show  how  the  contradictions  disappeared 
before  the  eyes  of  the  enliglitened.' 


10  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

theologian,  but  because  he  is  breathing  in  their 
pages  an  atmosphere  charged  with  the  fresh  experi- 
ences and  intuitions  which  are  essential  to  any 
theology  wliich  deserves  the  name  of  Christian. ^ 
He  will  first  of  all  put  himself  into  their  attitude 
towards  Jesus  Christ,  not  because  that  involves  the 
adoption  of  a  first-century  view  of  the  world,  but 
because  it  is  a  religious  attitude  which  is  determined 
by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  within  the  Church.  Before 
we  can  safely  reason  from  the  gospels  we  have  to 
share  their  position  towards  the  great  personality 
behind  and  above  them.  No  inferences  from 
their  contents  are  valid  apart  from  a  sense  of  the 
redeeming  facts  and  truths  which  inspire  them, 
and  which  are  larger  than  any  contemporary  elements 
in  the  records  or  in  the  historical  setting  which 
they  presuppose.  The  amount  of  relativity  in 
the  theology  of  the  gospels  only  looks  formidable 
when  they  are  approached  along  the  avenue  of 
mechanical  preconceptions  or  hyper-sceptical  pre- 
judices. 

M.  Anatole  France  quotes  the  defiant  retort  of 
a  modern  Frenchman,  M.  Charles  Maurras,  when 
some  one  cited  against  him  a  saying  from  the  gospels  : 
'  Je  ne  me  soucie  pas  de  savoir  ce  que  quatre  Juifs 
obscurs  ont  pense  de  Jesus-Christ !  '  ^  The  authors 
of  the  gospels  were  obscure  ;  at  least,  their  person- 
alities are  obscure  to  us  at  the  present  day,  with 
the  exception  of  Luke.  But  some  of  the  greatest 
truths  of  religion  have  come  from  the  pen  of 
anonymous  writers  ;  the  gospels  in  this  respect  are 
on  the  same  plane  as  the  larger  part  of  the  Old 

1  Cf.  Father  Tyrrell's  Medicevalism,  p.  129. 
«  In  The  English  Review  (April  1910),  p.  45. 


I.]         THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY         11 

Testament.  Besides,  to  reflect  a  theology  is  not 
the  same  thing  as  to  be  a  theologian.  Nor  do  the 
gospels  represent  three  or  four  writers  each  of 
whom  is  engaged  in  reproducing  a  conception  of 
Christ  from  his  devout  ego  ;  what  they  voice  is 
the  common  faith  as  it  was  held  in  various  circles  of 
the  apostoHc  church,  and  this  common  faith  rests 
upon  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  Christ,  upon  His  con- 
victions of  God,  His  judgments  of  men.  His  attitude 
to  the  world.  Throuoh  the  idealisation  of  the 
records,  through  their  tacit  corrections  and  avowed 
predilections,  through  categories  which  are  only 
partially  adequate,  through  misconceptions  and 
exaggerations,  through  the  refraction  of  con- 
temporary interests  and  preoccupations,  a  theology 
shines  which  is  not  wholly  obscure,  and  through  the 
theology  a  Figure  which  is  still  less  obscure. 

It  is  important  to  keep  in  view  the  range  and 
organic  character  of  these  variations  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  theology  of  the  gospels.  The  climax  of 
the  Fourth  gospel  is  the  appeal  of  the  risen  Christ : 
Be  not  faithless  hut  believing,  and  the  reply  of  Thomas 
(the  last  words  addressed  to  Christ  by  a  disciple) 
expresses  the  end  at  which  the  writer  conceives  faith 
will  arrive  under  the  growing  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ :  My  Lord  and  my  God.  What  the  theology 
of  the  gospels  mirrors  is  the  process,  or  rather  the 
processes,  of  experience  and  reflection  which  ripened 
faith  into  this  fundamental  conviction  of  the  Church. 
The  Fourth  gospel  puts  back  into  the  life  and  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  on  earth  convictions  and  experiences 
of  His  spiritual  significance  which  only  da\\Tied  in 
their  fulness  upon  the  Church  after  the  resurrec- 
tion.    This  is  a  source  of  endless  perplexity  to  the 


12  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

historical  critic.  It  is  not  a  feature  which  is  wholly 
absent  even  from  the  synoptic  gospels,  but  the 
extent  to  which  it  prevails  in  the  Fourth  gospel 
constitutes  a  problem  by  itself.  The  'plus  of  preach- 
ing, which  enters  into  the  synoptic  record  as  a 
product  of  the  early  church's  testimony,  becomes 
in  the  Fourth  gospel  at  several  points  a  surplus 
of  religious  and  theological  reflection,  which  often 
obscures  and  sometimes  resets  the  historical  outlines 
of  the  ministry  and  teaching  of  Jesus  as  these  can 
be  unravelled  in  the  sources  of  the  first  three  gospels. 
But  the  theological  continuity  between  the  Fourth 
gospel  and  its  predecessors  is  not  so  difficult  to 
trace  once  the  former  is  regarded  as  primarily  an 
interpretation  of  faith  in  the  historical  manner. 

The  theology  of  Mark,  for  example,  is  not  a 
description  of  how  a  genial  humanitarian  Jesus  went 
about  doing  good,  unconscious  of  any  specific  divine 
functions.  Mark's  gospel  is  the  story  of  Jesus  as 
a  supernatural  figure,  compelling  homage  from  the 
invisible  world  of  demons,  and  exercising  the  powers 
of  divine  forgiveness  and  authority  on  earth  as 
Son  of  God  and  Son  of  man.  Mark,  as  Wellhausen 
observes,  is  not  writing  de  vita  et  moribus  Jesu.  He 
essays  indeed  to  make  His  personaUty  vivid,  but 
that  personality  has  a  divine  vocation  which  supplies 
the  controlling  interest  of  the  story  :  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  In  this  respect  the  Christo- 
logy  of  Marli  rs  not  so  distant  from  the  essential 
features  even  of  tfiis  Fourth  gospel.  It  is  possible 
to  feel  this  affinity,  apart  from  the  special  argument 
of  J.  Weiss  {Das  dlteste  Evangelium,  pp.  97  f.),  that 
Mark's  use  of  the  titles  '  Son  of  man  '  and  '  Son  of 
God '  proves  his  acceptance  of  the  Pauline  idea  of 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY         13 

Jesus  as  a  Man  descended  from  heaven.  Mark, 
like  Paul  and  the  author  of  the  Fourth  gospel, 
does  not  explain  how  the  divine  being  took  flesh ; 
in  this  respect  his  christology  is  less  developed  than 
that  of  Matthew  or  Luke,  but  the  fundamental 
conception  of  the  person  of  Christ  is  already  present 
in  his  gospel,  and  present  as  the  dominant  feature 
of  the  story. 

Matthew's  theology  is  at  once  more  precisely 
messianic  and  more  definitely  Christian — in  the 
sense  that  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  is  more  than 
messiah.  As  the  Son  of  the  Father  and  as  the  Lord 
of  men,  He  occupies  a  place  which  does  not  depend 
on  any  arguments  from  prophecy.  Faith  in  Him 
is  made  more  explicit.  Some  of  the  most  perplexing 
antinomies  in  Matthew's  gospel  spring  out  of  the 
juxtaposition  of  sayings  which  imply  a  long 
perspective  for  the  kingdom  and  eschatological 
predictions  of  the  most  pronounced  type,  of  Jewish- 
Christian  sections  and  catholic  apergus  ;  there  is 
also  a  noticeable  reserve  in  the  use  of  the  exorcism 
traditions,  which  bulk  so  largely  in  the  Marcan 
estimate.  But  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  ethics  rather 
than  of  theology  proper  that  Matthew's  gospel 
differs  from  that  of  his  predecessor.^  The  theological 
characteristics  are  also  due  in  the  main  to  the  rabbinic 
methods  of  the  author,  which  tend  to  present  the 
christology  in  a  less  naive  and  popular  form  than 
Mark's  narrative. 

1  The  author  has  a  twofold  object  in  view :  to  explain  to  Jewish 
Christians  how  God's  kingdom,  which  Jesus  had  inaugurated,  was  so 
diflFerent  from  the  traditional  theocracy  of  expectation,  and  to  re- 
assiire  Gentile  Christians  who  were  perplexed  by  its  apparent  limita- 
tion to  Israel.  See  B.  Weiss,  Die  Quellen  der  Synoptischen  Utber- 
lieferung,  pp.  234  f. 


14  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

Luke's  theology  is  as  catholic  as  Matthew's  in 
spirit  and  more  so  in  expression.  The  wider  rela- 
tion of  Jesus  to  humanity  shimmers  through  the 
Jewish  environment.  He  is  the  son  of  Adam,  not  of 
Abraham  or  David,  in  the  genealogy,  and  as  the  Son 
of  God  He  occupies  a  place  which  is  more  intelligible 
than  Matthew  or  even  Mark  represents,  to  non- 
Jewish  readers.  In  the  accounts  of  the  resurrection 
Luke  is  distinctly  realistic  ;  more  than  once  there  is 
a  materialising  of  the  story,  wliich  contrasts  with 
Matthew.  But  the  theological  estimate,  even  with 
its  increasing  emphasis  on  the  Spirit,  is  essentially 
true  to  that  of  his  predecessors,  while  in  several 
respects  it  forms  a  development  in  the  direction  of 
the  Fourth  gospel.  Keim  insists  that  metaphysics 
are  beginning  already  to  attach  themselves  to  the 
personality  of  Jesus  ;  so  far  as  this  means  that  Jesus 
is  not  ceasing  to  occupy  a  unique  position  towards 
God  even  while  the  messianic  character  is  becoming 
a  less  important  category,  it  is  accurate. 

There  are  varieties  of  interpretation  here,  which 
evince  a  certain  maturing  of  faith,  but  they  are  neither 
casual  nor  irresponsible.  A  survey  of  such  variations 
is  apt  to  leave  the  impression  that  the  theological 
aspect  of  the  tradition,  if  not  the  historical,  is  due 
mainly  if  not  entirely  to  speculative  interests 
operating  within  a  world  of  heterogeneous  messianic 
and  Hellenic  ideas  about  the  Son  of  God.  It  is 
necessary  therefore  to  recollect  two  facts  :  in  the 
first  place,  that  these  interpretations  of  Jesus  as  the 
Christ  arose  from  the  instinctive  desire  to  represent, 
in  terms  of  current  thought,  the  person  of  One 
whom  the  churches  worshipped  as  their  Lord ; 
and  in  the  second  place,  that  this  desire  was  also 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY         15 

motived  repeatedly  by  practical  exigencies.  The 
former  aspect  is  more  generally  recognised  than  the 
second,  but  both  need  to  be  considered  fairly  in 
order  to  appreciate  the  genesis  of  the  theology  of 
the  gospels.  The  setiological  motive  led  to  the 
preservation  and  the  shaping  of  traditions  about  the 
rites  and  laws  and  future  of  the  society  which  owed 
its  origin  to  the  faith  of  Jesus.  The  apologetic 
aspect  of  that  motive,  as  in  the  case  of  Matthew  and 
the  Fourth  gospel  especially,  sharpened  interest  in 
the  anti-Jewish  or  rather  anti-Pharisaic  attitude  of 
Jesus.  Finally,  the  internal  controversies  of  the 
early  church,  especially  the  trouble  over  the  Law, 
inevitably  affected  the  christology,  and  started 
fresh  attempts  to  present  in  historical  form  the 
relation  of  Jesus  to  Israel  and  to  the  world  outside 
Israel.  In  addition  to  all  this,  there  was  the 
influence  of  contemporary  history,  which  must  have 
affected  in  particular  the  tradition  of  the  eschatologi- 
cal  sayings.  '  The  transmission  of  sayings  as  to  the 
future,  and  the  actual  unfolding  of  that  future, 
went  on  side  by  side.  It  seems  inevitable  that  the 
latter  should  affect  the  former.'  ^  All  this  does  not 
rule  out  tendency,  conscious  as  well  as  unconscious, 
from  the  gospels.  What  it  does  is  to  emphasise 
the  practical,  religious  motive  in  many  of  the 
modifications  which  the  tradition  presents,  and  to 
bring  out  the  fact  that  such  variations  were  not 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  authors.  They  point  back 
not  to  four  obscure  Jews  but  to  what  may  be  termed 
communal  instincts  —  communal  instincts  which 
ultimately  rest  upon  an  inherent  belief  in  Jesus  as 
the  Christ.  A  study  of  the  gospels  from  the 
1  H.  B.  Sharman,  The  Teaching  of  Jesus  about  the  Future,  p.  138. 


16  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [CH. 

historical  or  from  the  Hterary  standpoint  would 
require  to  estimate  the  genesis  and  growth  of  such 
tendencies,  to  assign  the  midrashic  element  its 
proper  value,  and  to  distinguish  the  sections  where 
some  reUgious  idea  is  presented  in  historical  form, 
where  a  miracle  has  grown  out  of  a  parable  or  a 
rehgious  belief  in  the  course  of  tradition,  for  example, 
or  where  some  incident  is  symbolic.  The  theological 
appreciation  of  the  gospels  cannot  entirely  dispense 
with  such  methods  of  treatment,  but  its  primary 
concern  is  with  what  the  writers  beheved  about 
Jesus  rather  than  with  the  exact  forms  in  which 
they  happened  to  express  that  belief.  No  doubt, 
it  is  the  beliefs  which  have  sometimes  created  the 
history.  But  the  beliefs,  however  naively  expressed, 
were  not  floating  in  the  air  ;  they  are  organic  to  the 
substantial  faith  without  which  there  would  not 
have  been  any  gospels  at  all,  and  that  faith  was 
not  created  by  any  crisis,  practical  or  speculative, 
through  which  the  primitive  church  had  to  pass. 
The  theology  of  the  gospels  has  been  shaped  by 
the  exigencies  and  experiences  of  the  apostoUc  age, 
but  it  was  not  their  simple  product.  In  one  aspect, 
it  is  the  reflection  of  the  very  faith  which  enabled 
the  early  Christians  to  be  Christians.  In  another 
aspect,  it  suggests  that  the  creative  genius  of  the 
Founder  is  not  to  be  overlooked  in  estimating  the 
records  drawn  up  by  His  adherents.  When  the 
gospels  contain  sajdngs  which  appear  to  suit  some 
crisis  or  situation  in  the  apostolic  age,  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  they  arose  from  that  period 
or  have  been  shaped  to  harmonise  with  it.  Tendency 
in  the  church  was  not  more  creative  than  Jesus.  '  Of 
course,  there  are  numerous  instances  of  hysteron- 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        17 

proteron  in  the  gospels — the  merest  suggestion  of 
practical  aim  or  purpose  leads  to  a  hysteron-proteron, 
and  the  gospels  follow  practical  aims — yet  it  by 
no  means  follows  that  saying  after  saying  must  have 
been  coloured  and  corrected  in  accordance  with  the 
circumstances  of  later  times.'  ^  This  is  a  sound  canon. 
It  applies  particularly  to  the  references  to  persecution, 
but  it  has  a  wider  range,  and  it  must  be  allowed 
to  quaUfy  any  inferences  that  may  be  drawn  as  to 
the  presence  and  extent  of  tendency  in  the  recorded 
speeches  of  Jesus  throughout  the  synoptic  tradition. 
At  the  same  time,  there  is  a  speculative  back- 
ground to  the  theology  of  the  gospels.  There  were 
christologies,  messianic  ^  and  in  a  sense  Hellenic, 
before  the  gospels,  before  even  Christianity,  and 
the  special  views  of  the  gospels  are  sometimes 
expressed  either  in  terms  of  these  or  with  a  more  or 
less  conscious  reference  to  them.  It  is  necessary, 
however,  for  our  present  purpose  to  restrict  the 
theology  of  the  gospels  to  the  rehgious  ideas  of 
Jesus  and  the  evangelists,  so  far  as  they  were 
conscious  of  their  range  and  origin.  There  is  a 
misty  hinterland  behind  conceptions  hke  the  Son  of 
man,  the  Logos,  the  incarnation,  and  the  last  judg- 
ment, which  involves  researches  into  comparative 
religion  beyond  the  pale  of  Judaism.  All  such  con- 
ceptions we  shall  take  as  they  were  used  by  Jesus 

1  Harnack,  The  Sayings  of  Jesus,  p.  204. 

2  The  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  allegorical  and  other- 
wise, depends  on  the  principle  that  Christ  was  the  end  of  the  divine 
revelation  in  Judaism,  and  that  the  law  and  the  prophets  were  there- 
fore to  be  read  in  the  light  of  the  end.  The  theology  of  the  gospels 
contains,  amid  its  uses  of  the  Old  Testament,  a  substantially  correct 
estimate  of  the  preceding  literature  of  Judaism ;  it  is  employed  to 
illustrate  rather  than  to  prove  the  Christian  belief  in  Jesus. 

£ 


18  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

and  the  authors  of  the  gospels,  without  discussing 
e.g.  the  rise  of  the  animistic  view  which  lies  behind 
the  faith  in  demons  and  angels  and  the  Spirit,  or 
even  the  relation  between  the  Oriental  avatar  idea 
and  the  Fourth  gospel's  christology.  Still  further,  it 
is  irrelevant  to  the  central  problems  of  the  theology 
of  the  gospels  to  enter  into  detailed  discussion  of 
the  affinities  between  Pharisaic  Judaism  and  the 
religion  of  Jesus,  or  to  give  explicit  resumes  of  the 
difference  between  His  teaching  and  contemporary 
scribism.  It  is  sufficient  to  keep  the  latter  before 
one's  mind.  The  relation  of  Jesus  to  the  Law, 
for  example,  is  an  outcome  of  His  consciousness  as 
messiah,  and  in  these  pages  it  is  noticed  simply 
from  that  standpoint ;  otherwise  it  falls  under  the 
category  of  His  ethical  praxis  rather  than  of  His 
theology.  The  latter  is  concerned  with  the  inner 
principles  of  His  religion,  which  determined  the 
course  of  His  career  and  His  attitude  to  questions 
like  those  of  divorce,  the  sabbath,  and  the  temple. 

The  theology  of  the  gospels  was  a  cause  as  well  as 
an  effect,  however.  It  marks  the  rise  of  a  creative 
genius  on  the  soil  of  Judaism,  and  it  entered  into  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church.  To  understand  the 
gospels  we  ought  to  study  their  influence  as  well  as 
their  environment  and  origin,  and  in  a  manual  of 
New  Testament  theology  or  a  history  of  dogma 
this  consideration  is  borne  in  mind.  Here  space 
forbids  more  than  a  glance  at  the  most  important 
movement  in  the  theology  of  the  period,  namely, 
the  religious  system  of  Paul.  The  relation  between 
this  and  the  gospels  is  one  of  interaction.  It  is 
now  recognised  that  the  tendency  to  minimise 
Paul's  interest  in  and  acquaintance  with  the  life  of 


l]        the  gospels  and  their  theology         19 

Jesus  has  been  carried  beyond  what  the  data  of  his 
epistles  warrant.  In  that  sense,  the  primitive 
tradition  of  Jesus  which  underHes  the  synoptic 
gospels  had  an  effect  on  Paulinism.  Jesus  was 
something  more  to  Paul  than  a  figure  round  which  a 
floating  christology  crystallised.  But  the  theology 
of  the  gospels  is  not  the  theology  of  Paul ;  the 
sources  of  the  sjraoptic  writings,  Mark  in  its  primitive 
form  and  Q,  cannot  be  dated  earlier  than  the 
PauUne  movement,  and  it  is  the  effect  of  Paulinism 
upon  the  gospels,  not  vice  versa,  which  has  to  be 
considered. 

(a)  This  raises  the  first  of  the  preliminary  problems 
regarding  the  critical  use  of  the  gospels  for  the 
purpose  of  ascertaining  their  theology  :  Is  there  a 
theology  of  the  gospels  apart  from  the  rest  of  the 
New  Testament  ?  Were  they  merely  transcripts  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  upon  which  the  epistles  were 
comments,  it  would  be  at  once  possible  to  answer 
such  a  question  in  the  affirmative.  But  the  gospels 
are  products  of  the  apostoUc  age,  and  their  origin 
is  significant  for  any  appreciation  of  their  contents. 
It  is  impracticable,  on  the  other  hand,  to  treat  them 
as  no  more  than  products  of  the  apostohc  faith, 
uncontrolled  by  any  definite  gospel  of  Jesus  behind 
them.  What  the  theologian  has  to  do  is  to  de- 
termine the  extent  to  which  the  tendencies  and 
interests  of  the  primitive  church  affected  the  tradi- 
tion at  any  given  point,  and  this  involves  intricate 
questions  of  historical  and  literary  criticism,  many 
of  which  are  still  unanswered.  There  is  the  prob- 
lem of  the  parables,  for  example.  How  far  has 
the  conception  of  the  Church  moulded  the  con- 
ception of  the  Reign  in  the  parabolic  traditions  of 


U^ 


20  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Matthew  and  even  of  Mark  ?  Have  later  associa- 
tions of  the  Church  been  carried  over  into  the 
primitive  words  of  Jesus  upon  the  Reign  of  God  in 
more  parables  than  those  of  the  drag-net  and  the 
tares  ?  Or  has  the  hjrpothesis  of  the  equivalence  of 
Church  and  Kjingdom  in  Paul  been  exaggerated  ? 
Again,  is  a  section  like  Mark  viii.  27-x.  45  (as  Bacon 
and  Wellhausen  independently  argue)  substantially 
a  projection  of  later  Christian  views  into  the  original 
tradition,  an  unhistorical  expansion  of  the  Christian 
credo  that  the  Christ  must  suffer  ?  Here  also,  we 
may  suspect,  there  is  exaggeration.  The  occurrence  of 
several  logia  in  the  passage  which  are  vouched  for 
by  Q,  and  the  presence  of  undoubtedly  historical 
incidents  in  the  narrative,  help  to  confirm  the 
impression  that  this  section  on  the  Christ  and  the 
cross  is  not  out  of  keeping  in  the  main  with  the 
situation  of  Jesus  and  His  disciples.  Similarly  it 
is  impossible  to  regard  the  predictions  of  the 
resurrection  or  the  declarations  of  the  messianic 
vocation  as  purely  apostolic  ;  without  some  basis 
in  the  teaching  and  life  of  Jesus  their  form  and 
existence  in  the  tradition  are  not  explicable.  Thus 
the  term  Son  of  man,  in  its  messianic  sense,  is  not 
wholly  due  to  the  pious  reverence  of  the  early 
Christians,  who  were  responsible  for  attaching 
divine  significance  to  a  name  which  in  the  original 
Aramaic  upon  the  lips  of  Jesus  meant  no  more 
than  '  man  '  or  '  some  one,'  or  a  self-designation. 
This  we  shall  see  later  on.  Meantime  it  is  enough 
to  point  out  that  such  problems  meet  the  theologian 
as  he  proceeds  to  use  the  gospels  for  his  special 
purposes,  and  that  they  forbid  us  to  take  the 
documents   either    as   pure  products    of    tendency 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        21 

or  as  uncoloured  transcripts  of  some  original  and 
authoritative  teaching.  Before  any  one  of  them 
was  written  Paul  had  thought  and  taught.  It  is 
true  that  the  theology  of  the  early  church  embraced 
a  variety  of  types  which  cannot  be  reduced  to  Jewish 
and  Gentile  Christianity  respectively,  much  less  to 
the  influence  of  the  great  apostle  ;  but  he  was  the 
first  theologian  of  the  Church,  his  letters  present  a 
fairly  clear  outline  of  his  views,  and  his  influence 
therefore  has  to  be  taken  primarily  into  account  as 
a  factor  in  the  evolution  of  the  religious  conceptions 
which  the  four  gospels  voice,  in  so  far  as  these 
cannot  be  traced  back  with  certainty  to  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  Himself. 

With  regard  to  the  Fourth  gospel,  the  relation 
is  comparatively  clear.  By  the  time  it  was  composed 
the  great  Pauline  struggle  with  the  Jewish  Christianai 
had  been  long  since  fought  and  won.  The  writer 
practically  assumes  the  freedom  of  Christians  from 
the  Law — while  the  Law  was  given  through  Moses, 
grace  and  truth  came  through  Jesus  Christ, —  the  world- 
wide range  of  Christ's  mission,  and  the  supersession 
of  Judaism  as  a  religious  system.  In  its  christology, 
as  well  as  in  its  conceptions  of  the  Spirit,  of  the 
union  between  the  believer  and  Christ,  of  freedom, 
of  glory,  and  even  of  faith,  the  Fourth  gospel  bears 
ample  traces  of  the  Pauline  theology.  In  almost 
every  instance  the  writer  has  modified  or  expanded 
what  he  has  taken  over  ;  his  theology  is  not  simply 
a  development  of  Paulinism,  but  Paulinism  is  one 
of  its  most  important  presuppositions.  '  Upon  one 
side,  we  may  characterise  what  is  essential  and 
original  in  the  Johannine  view  by  saying  that  it 
represents  a  synthesis   of   the   primitive  apostolic 


22  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

tradition  with  Paulinism,'  ^  although  we  must  add 
that  some  conceptions  which  are  apparently  due 
to  the  latter  may  have  been  anticipated  in  the 
former  or  elsewhere. 

The  problem  of  the  relation  of  Pauhnism  to  the 
synoptic  gospels  comes  to  a  head  in  the  criticism 
of  Mark,  where  one  critic  alleges  that  to  understand 
Mark  the  reader  must  forget  all  about  Paulinism,^ 
while  others  only  differ  in  the  extent  to  which  they 
assign  the  operation  of  Pauline  influences  upon  the 
narrative  and  teaching  of  the  gospel.  Once  or 
twice  there  are  water-marks  of  the  evangelist's 
Pauline  environment,  for  example  in  the  connota- 
tion of  the  term  gospel,  in  the  determinism  of  the 
parabolic  theory  (iv.  10-12),  which  is  upon  the  whole 
more  likely  to  have  come  from  the  Pauline  view  of 
Israel's  rejection  than  from  any  eschatological 
theory  upon  the  part  of  Jesus,  and  also  in  the 
symbolic  allusion  to  the  rending  of  the  veil  of  the 
temple.  But  the  characteristic  features  of  the 
gospel  hardly  show  any  impact  of  conscious  or 
radical  Paulinism  ;  the  universaUsm  e.g.  is  prophetic 
rather  than  Pauline ;  and  the  use  of  non-Pauhne  terms 
like  the  Son  of  man  proves  that  the  author  adhered 
to  the  primitive  tradition  rather  than  to  the  Pauline 
soteriology.     I    share    the    opinion    of   those  who 

1  A.  Titius,  Die  Johanneische  Anschauung  unter  dem  Oesichts- 
punkt  der  Sdigkeit,  p.  2, 

2  Wernle,  Die  Synoptische  Frage,  pp.  199  f.  *  The  specific  features 
of  Paulinism  are  entirely  absent  from  Mark.  .  .  ,  The  Christology 
contradicts  that  of  Paul  in  almost  every  point.'  This  position  is 
more  easily  held  by  those  who,  like  Wernle,  still  believe  in  a  Petrine 
tradition  behind  Mark.  The  best  examination  of  the  problem  is 
by  the  great  French  critic  Lagrange  in  his  edition  of  Mark  (pp. 
cxL-cl.). 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        23 

conclude  that  the  so-called  Paulinism  of  Mark 
does  not  amount  to  very  much  after  all.^  The 
gospel  is  in  the  main  undogmatic  ;  so  far  as  it  is 
dogmatic  it  is  not  specifically  Pauline. 

As  for  Q,  it  is  generally  recognised  that,  so  far 
as  its  characteristic  features  can  be  made  out,  it 
was  not  stamped  with  Paulinism.  The  Palestinian 
circles  in  which  it  originated  represented  a  type  of 
primitive  theology  which  in  all  likelihood  lay  out- 
side the  direct  influence  of  the  apostle's  teaching. 
The  character  of  Matthew's  gospel,  with  the  Jewish- 
Christian  tinge  of  certain  strata,  naturally  marks  it 
off  from  Paulinism ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  anti- 
Pauline  tendency  which  is  usually  discovered  ^  in  this 
gospel  by  those  who  bring  it  into  any  relation  to 
the  apostle.  Luke's  friendship  with  Paul  places  his 
work  in  a  different  category.  The  narrative  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  for  example  (even  in  its  shorter 
form),  and  the  occasional  use  of  Pauline  phrases 
and  terms  {e.g.  in  xxi.  34-6),  betray  the  writer's 
affinity  with  Paulinism,  but  the  remarkable  thing 
is  that  there  are  so  few  specifically  Pauline  ideas 
wrought  into  the  texture  of  a  gospel  whose  author 
stood  within  the  Pauline  circle.  The  atmosphere 
of  the  primitive  church  can  be  felt ;  '  Paulinism  ' 
as  a  doctrine  of  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  is  con- 

1  Cf.  Menzies,  The  Earliest  Gospel,  p.  39, 

'  Imagined,  sometimes.  Thus  Professor  Bacon  {Beginnings  of 
Gospel  Story,  p.  132)  comments  severely  upon  Matthew's  version  of 
Christ's  answer  to  the  rich  young  ruler:  to  make  obedience  to  the 
commandments  the  condition  of  entrance  into  life  eternal,  he  declares, 
is  '  a  photographic  revelation  of  that  Jewish -Christian  legalism  against 
which  Paul  brought  to  bear  all  the  powers  of  his  logic  and  of  his  life.' 
Who  wrote,  Circumcision  is  nothing  and  uncircumcision  is  nothing, 
hut  the  keeping  of  the  commandments  of  God  ? 


24  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [oh. 

spicuously  absent.  A  scrutiny  of  the  very  passages 
where  PauUne  influence  is  most  Hkely  to  have  been 
present  discloses  the  fact  that  '  Luke  has  not  appro- 
priated any  specific  doctrine  of  Paul,  but  only  made 
his  own  in  all  their  generality  the  gains  of  the  great 
apostle's  life-work — freedom  from  the  law,  and  the 
assurance  that  salvation  is  open  to  all.'  ^  There  are 
occasional  traces  of  Pauline  language  as  well  as 
thought,  e.g.  in  viii.  12,  x.  8  (cf.  1  Cor.  x.  27),  and 
XX.  38  (=Rom.  vi.  10,  xiv.  7-8),  but  Luke  could  be 
a  friend  of  Paul  without  sharing  his  specific  theology, 
and  an  analysis  of  the  Third  gospel  turns  the 
'  could  be  '  into  '  was.' 

(6)  The  foregoing  discussion  has  already  opened 
up  a  further  query :  Is  it  feasible,  and  if  so  in  what 
sense,  to  speak  about  a  theology  of  the  four  gospels  ? 
Even  the  three  synoptic  gospels  have  their  special 
characteristics,  and  then  there  is  the  famihar  problem 
of  the  differences  between  the  general  synoptic 
theology  and  the  Johannine. 

As  for  the  former  problem,  the  exhaustive  and 
ntricate  processes  of  synoptic  criticism  are  apt  to 
engross  us  till  we  forget  to  view 

*  The  parts 
As  parts,  but  with  a  feeling  of  the  whole.* 

Important  as  their  characteristics  are  for  the 
study  of  primitive  religion  in  the  apostolic  churches, 
their  common  characteristic  is  more  important  still. 
We  raise  questions,  more  or  less  vital,  about  the 
gospels,  but  the  gospels  have  only  one  question  to 
put  to  us :  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ? — and  they  put 

1  Scliiniedel,  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  p.  1841, 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        25 

it,  sure  of  what  the  answer  ought  to  be.  No  amount 
of  discrepancies  and  idiosyncrasies  should  be  allowed 
to  obscure  this  predominating  interest,  especially 
as  all  three  have  a  close  Uterary  connection.  Besides 
some  special  sources  which  underUe  the  First  and 
the  Third  gospels  respectively,  Mark's  gospel,  either 
in  its  present  form  or  in  an  earlier  shape,  has 
been  employed  by  Matthew  and  Luke,  both  of 
whom  also  seem  to  have  drawn,  in  different  ways, 
upon  an  earlier  collection  of  the  sayings  of  Jesus, 
to  which  the  convenient  term  Q  is  usually  applied. 
Critics  are  still  divided  upon  the  question  whether 
Mark  used  Q,  or  vice  versa,  or  even  whether  there 
was  any  literary  connection  between  them.  For 
the  purpose  of  discovering  the  theology  of  the 
gospels,  however,  such  points  are  of  subordinate 
importance.  It  would  be  more  relevant  if  we 
could  be  sure  of  the  precise  contents  and  therefore 
of  the  theological  colour  of  Q,  particularly  in 
relation  to  the  apocalyptic  eschatology.  But  even 
t4iis  is  still  uncertain.  What  is  certain,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  is  that  the  tendency  to  magnify  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  is  the  characteristic 
feature  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  is  already  present  in 
the  sjmoptic  tradition  from  the  first.  It  is  well 
marked  in  the  structure  of  Matthew  and  Luke 
even  as  compared  with  the  earlier  Mark.  The 
most  casual  reader  can  hardly  miss  alterations  in 
one  or  both  of  the  later  synoptic  gospels  which 
were  plainly  due  to  the  growing  reverence  for  Jesus 
as  the  Christ.  Not  only  is  there  a  disposition,  as 
it  has  been  said,  to  spare  the  twelve — to  soften  one 
or  two  sayings  and  incidents  which  appeared  to 
reflect  upon   the   memory   and   reputation   of  the 


26  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

Church's  early  leaders — and,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  bring  their  importance  into  more  relief,  but  the 
religious  value  of  Jesus  to  the  Church  appears  to 
have  operated  to  some  extent  in  the  direction  of 
toning  down  expressions  which  seemed  too  frankly 
human,  and  of  altering  others  in  order  to  convey 
an  impression  of  Christ's  person  more  consonant 
with  the  pietas  of  the  apostolic  church.  Thus 
both  Matthew  and  Luke  suppress  the  flash  of  anger 
which  Jesus  showed  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum 
(Mark  iii.  5),  and  His  indignation,  later  on,  at  the 
disciples  who  tried  to  prevent  the  mothers  from 
bringing  their  children  for  a  blessing  (Mark  x.  14). 
There  are  repeated  instances  of  this  tendency,  but 
such  phenomena  are  neither  numerous  nor  important 
enough  to  justify  the  hjrpo thesis  that  the  s;yTioptic 
gospels  represent  a  gradual  apotheosis  of  Jesus  in 
the  faith  of  the  early  church.  Whether  we  postulate 
an  earlier  form  of  Mark  or  not,  both  of  the  main 
traditions  or  sources  which  underlie  the  synoptic 
gospels  attest  a  primitive  belief  in  Jesus  as  the 
Christ ;  they  presuppose  a  confession  of  faith 
which  reaches  back  prior  to  Paul,  and  the  essential 
characteristics  of  their  christology  point  to  their 
independence  of  the  contemporary  Pauline  theology. 
To  quote  only  one  instance  of  a  synoptic  implicate 
for  a  Johannine  theologumenon :  the  conception 
of  Christ  as  chosen  by  a  pre-temporal  act  of  God 
for  His  mission  on  earth  is  not  confined  to  the  Fourth 
gospel ;  it  appears,  in  a  messianic  form,  in  the 
synoptic  view  of  God's  good  pleasure  as  shown  in 
the  election  of  the  messiah  to  carry  out  the  divine 
purpose  of  revelation  on  earth.  Thus  a  passage 
like  the  adapted  quotation  in  Matt.  xii.  18  [Behold 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        27 

my  Son,  whom  I  adopted,  my  Beloved,  in  wJiom  my 
soul  took  delight)  is  exactly  parallel  to  the  Johannine 
description  of  Christ  as  Him  whom  the  Father  con- 
secrated and  sent  into  the  world.  What  is  emphasised 
in  the  Fourth  gospel  is  in  the  background  of  the 
synoptic  theology  ;  still,  it  is  there. 

Such  conceptions  of  God  and  Christ  or  of  the 
world  we  are  accustomed  to  term  '  Johannine,' 
since  they  are  presented  in  a  document  which  the 
second  century  associated  with  the  authorship  of 
John.  But  this  presentation  is  only  their  final  and 
classical  form.  The  '  Johannine '  theology  embodies 
conceptions  like  those  of  the  Logos  and  of  the 
Spirit  which  had  been  already  current,  in  incipient 
forms,  throughout  not  only  Egyptian  and  Hellenistic 
circles  but  even  the  earher  theology  of  Paul  and  the 
synoptic  gospels,  and  the  less  isolated  we  make 
them  the  more  characteristic  they  become.  The 
stamp  of  comparative  originality  is  upon  Johannine 
conceptions  like  those  of  light  and  truth  and  glory. 
Nevertheless,  even  such  ideas  presuppose  an 
atmosphere  of  common  interest  and  sympathy. 
They  are  tjrpical  of  a  mode  of  thought  at  the  close 
of  the  first  century,  which  had  been  growing  for 
decades  in  certain  circles,  and  which  renders  explicit 
and  coherent  a  number  of  earlier  intuitions  of  the 
primitive  Christian  religion  within  as  well  as  without 
the  first  three  gospels. 

It  is  certainly  the  case  that  the  element  of  inter- 
pretation is  considerably  larger  in  the  Fourth  gospel 
than  in  the  first  three.  Li  the  dialogues  and  even 
in  the  prayers  of  Christ  there  are  deliberate  arguments 
and  statements  about  the  relation  between  God  and 
Christ,  between  Christ  and  men,  between  the  world 


J 


28  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [oH. 

and  God.  The  object  of  the  book  is,  no  doubt, 
practical  and  spiritual,  but  the  predominant  con- 
ception is  that  of  the  supreme  value  which  attaches 
to  the  person  of  Christ  as  the  incarnate  Logos  through 
whom  the  divine  reality  has  entered  this  unsub- 
stantial world,  and  in  whom  the  believing  man 
attains  to  life  eternal.  At  first  sight  it  does 
appear  as  though  theology  had  prevailed  over  faith. 
We  may  feel  that  the  doctrinal  significance  of  Christ's 
person,  cosmological  and  mysterious,  has  lifted  an 
Alexandrian  theosophy  ^  into  the  place  formerly 
occupied  by  the  simpler  self-revelation  of  Jesus 
in  word  and  deed.  This  is  not  the  final  impression 
of  the  book,  however.  There  are  other  elements 
which  modify  such  a  verdict.  At  the  same  time, 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  forecast,  from  the  trend 
of  recent  criticism,  that  some  of  the  historical 
sections  in  the  synoptic  tradition  will  be  found 
closer  to  the  Johannine  stories  than  has  hitherto 
been  imagined.  One  or  two  of  the  synoptic  miracles, 
for  example,  show  the  same  creative  pressure  of 
tendency  as  the  Johannine — the  naive  dramatisation 
of  a  belief  in  an  anecdote,  the  symbolic  story,  or  the 
passage  of  a  parable  into  a  miracle.  As  an  offset 
to  this,  we  may  count  not  only  the  recognition  of 

1  Kreyenbiihl  {Evangdium  d.  Wahrheif,  i.  383  f.)  asserts  that  in 
the  prologue  it  is  Plato  whom  we  hear,  not  Philo,  and  that  if  there 
is  any  allusion  to  the  latter  it  is  by  way  of  polemic.  It  is  true  that 
John's  Logos  is  not  a  vice-god  or  a  subordinate  divine  power,  but  the 
Philonic  background  of  the  Fourth  gospel's  theology  is  unmistakable. 
Where  the  gospel  reminds  us  of  Plato  is  in  the  dialogues  as  much  as 
in  the  prplogue ;  the  dialectic,  which  aims  at  confounding  the 
opponents  and  which  develops  arguments  in  narrative  form,  recalls 
the  Platonic  method  even  more  than  the  prologue  recalls  the  Platonio 
spirit. 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        29 

superior  historical  traditions  in  the  Fourth  gospel 
(as  e.g,  the  date  of  Christ's  death),  but — what  is 
more  important  for  our  present  purpose — the 
perception  of  so-called  '  Johannine '  conceptions 
present,  though  as  a  rule  in  more  or  less  undeveloped 
form,  within  the  synoptic  theology.  The  loss,  from 
the  standpoint  of  historicity,  is  counterbalanced 
by  a  gain  theologically. 

To  sum  up,  the  religious  view  of  Jesus  Christ 
which  the  synoptic  gospels  represent,  under  all 
their  idiosyncrasies  and  characteristic  categories, 
carries  with  it  presuppositions  which  led  not 
unnaturally  to  the  later  estimate  of  His  person  in 
the  pages  of  the  Fourth  gospel.  The  latter's 
christology  was  not  simply  the  attempt  of  an 
independent  thinker  to  restate,  in  terms  of  the 
Logos  idea,  a  conception  of  Christ  which  Paul  had 
been  primarily  responsible  for  domiciUng  within 
the  faith  of  primitive  Christianity.  The  germs  of  it 
may  be  found  within  the  theology  of  the  synoptic 
gospels.  The  more  consistently  we  refuse  to 
harmonise  at  any  cost  the  theological  as  well  as  the 
historical  contents  of  the  four  gospels,  the  better 
we  shall  be  able  to  realise  that  their  authors  might 
have  protested  with  justice,  though  we  or  an  angel 
from  heaven  were  to  preach  any  gospel  other  than 
what  we  preached  to  you,  let  him  be  anathema.  That 
was  indeed  the  passionate  protest  of  one  whose 
theology  was  distinctive,  if  anything  was  distinctive 
in  early  Christian  thought,  and  it  might  be  argued 
that  the  author  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  for  example, 
Uke  Paul,  was  more  revolutionary  than  perhaps  he 
realised.  A  great  thinker,  like  a  great  reformer, 
will  sometimes  claim,  in  all  good  faith,  that  he  is 


30  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

only  reproducing  what  is  common  to  himself  and 
his  age,  although  in  reality,  as  events  prove,  he  is 
less  conservative  than  he  imagines.  But  while  the 
plane  of  thought  in  the  Fourth  gospel  is  obviously 
different  from  that  which  characterises  the  general 
strata  of  the  first  three,  it  is  the  same  Jesus  who  is 
behind  and  above  all  four.  There  are  traits  common 
to  the  Fourth  gospel  and  its  predecessors,  and 
these  are  not  confined  to  the  use  of  similar  language 
nor  to  the  occasional  presence  of  elements  native 
to  the  earher  church's  belief  which  are  preserved 
amid  the  distinctive  and  original  ideas  of  that  gospel 
itself.  It  is  through  the  latter,  not  outside  of  them, 
that  historical  criticism  can  detect  features  which 
mark  a  line  of  continuity  between  the  first  three 
gospels  and  the  Fourth  in  point  of  their  theology. 
-  (c)  The  fact  that  within  the  compass  of  the 
gospels  there  are  instances  of  changes  introduced 
by  a  later  writer  for  the  sake  of  doctrine  raises  the 
further  question  :  May  not  the  text  of  the  canonical 
gospels  have  been  modified  or  amplified  at  certain 
points  in  the  interests  of  later  Christian  belief  ? 
The  abstract  possibility  of  this  is  not  to  be  denied. 
The  text  of  the  gospels  was  probably  more  hable 
to  corruption  and  change  of  this  kind  during  the 
early  period  than  later,  when  they  came  to  be 
safeguarded  by  their  ecclesiastical  position,  and  it 
is  just  in  the  earlier  period  that  it  is  naturally  difiicult 
to  obtain  evidence  for  such  changes  from  the  textual 
phenomena  of  the  manuscripts. 

Four  characteristic  instances  in  which  such  a 
process  has  been  legitimately  suspected  are  (i) 
the  elimination,  for  harmonising  purposes,  of  this 
day  have  I  begotten  thee,  in  favour  of  in  thee  am  I 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        31 

well  pleased,  in  the  text  of  Luke  iii.  22  ;  (ii)  the 
insertion,  in  whole  or  part,  of  the  rock-saying  in 
Matt.  xvi.  18-19 ;  (iii)  the  expansion  of  the  original 
text  of  Matt,  xxviii.  19,  as  given  by  Eusebius,  into 
the  trinitarian  form  of  the  canonical  text ;  and  (iv) 
the  alteration  in  the  text  of  John  i.  13,  which  turns 
it  into  a  witness  for  the  dogma  of  the  virgin-birth. 
These  are  only  specimens  of  this  hypothesis,  but 
they  are  typical.  Each  has  to  be  considered  on 
its  merits.^ 

(i)  The  special  reading  preserved  by  D  (also,  a  b  c 
ff^  1  r)  might  be  due  to  the  desire  of  approximating 
the  bath-qol  verbally  to  Ps.  ii.  7,  or  it  may  be  taken 
to  reflect  the  original  form  of  the  saying,  which  was 
afterwards  altered  o^ving  to  a  sense  of  discrepancy 
between  this  impartation  of  the  Spirit  (as  con- 
stituting Jesus  God's  Son)  and  the  story  of  the 
virgin-birth  in  the  same  gospel  or  the  narrative  of 
the  baptism  in  Mark  and  Matthew.  The  latter  view 
(so  e.g.  Blass,  Spitta,  Usener,  Pfleiderer,  Zahn, 
Wernle,  Conybeare ;  see  the  present  writer's 
Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  N.T.,  p.  269) 
seems  upon  the  whole  more  likely,  whatever  may 
have  been  the  original  significance  attached  to  the 
phrase  or  its  relation  to  the  foregoing  section  of  the 
gospel.^  The  reading  is  vouched  for  as  early  as 
Justin  Martyr,  and  its  remarkably  wide  prevalence 
in  the  second  and  third  centuries  is  a  factor  in  its 
favour.     Li   this   case   there   is   reason   to   suspect 

^  Further  instances  of  such  primitive  readings,  altered  subsequently 
for  theological  purposes,  in  Zahn's  Introduction  to  N.T.,  iii.  38  f. 

2  On  the  question  of  its  presence  in  Q,  of.  Salmon's  Human 
Element  in  the  Gospds,  pp.  56  f.,  and  Harnack's  Sayings  of  Jesus, 
pp.  310  f. 


32  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

that  the  alteration  was  due  to  a  doctrinal  interest, 
which  found  the  Lucan  text,  Thou  art  my  Son,  to-day 
have  I  begotten  thee,  inconvenient  and  misleading. 

(ii)  The  entire  Matthean  passage,  xvi.  18-19,  is  one 
of  the  author's  Jewish-Christian  insertions,  in  which 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to  conjecture  what,  if  any, 
was  the  original  basis  (cf .  the  present  writer's  Intro- 
duction, pp.  252  f.).  The  h3rpothesis  that  one  if 
not  both  of  the  verses  must  be  the  work  of  a  second- 
century  editor,  who  used  some  apocryphal  logion 
in  the  interest  of  the  Petrine  supremacy,  has 
been  developed  recently  by  M.  Guignebert  in  his 
Primauti  de  Pierre  et  la  venue  de  Pierre  a  Rome 
(Paris,  1909).  Unfortunately,  there  is  no  textual 
evidence  here  to  support  the  conjecture ;  it  is 
purely  a  question  of  internal  evidence,  which  is 
apt  to  be  decided  upon  presuppositions  about  the 
likelihood  of  Jesus  mentioning  the  church  at  all, 
or  about  the  ecclesiastical  functions  which  are 
assigned  to  Peter.  The  latter  are  probably  more 
than  the  ordinary  Protestant  interpretation  admits, 
but  they  are  far  from  justifying  the  later 
Roman  interpretation  ;  the  absence  of  the  saying 
from  the  Petrine  gospel  of  Mark,  its  omission  by 
Luke,  and  its  deliberate  correction  by  the  author  of 
the  Fourth  gospel,  are  sufficient  to  indicate  the 
importance  attached  to  it  by  the  early  church,  if 
it  did  exist  in  the  original  text  of  Matthew. 

(iii)  There  is  an  equal  lack  of  MSS.  evidence  in 
support  of  the  contention  that  Matt,  xxviii.  19 
originally  ran  as  follows : — Go  ye  therefore  and  make 
disciples  of  all  nations  [in  my  name],  teaching  them 
to  observe  whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you.  Here, 
as  in  the  case  of  (ii),  the  Syriac  versions  are  unfor- 


L]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        33 

tunately  defective,  but  this  Eusebian  form  of  the 
text,  which  omitted  the  baptismal  formula,  must 
have  been  current  at  an  early  date  ;  it  is  doubtful, 
to  judge  from  Apol.  i.  61,  whether  Justin  knew  the 
canonical  form,  and  the  latter  is  more  likely  to  be 
an  expansion  of  the  former  than  vice  versa.  The 
absence  of  anything  equivalent  in  the  Lucan  tradition 
or  even  in  the  appendix  to  Mark  (xvi.  15  f.)  also 
tells  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  shorter  form  of 
the  text  was  original  (cf.  Prof.  Lake's  statement 
in  Hastings^  Encyclopcedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics, 
ii.  pp.  379  f.),  and  that  the  longer  form  emanated 
from  the  same  circles  or  at  any  rate  from  the  same 
hturgical  and  ecclesiastical  motives  as  gave  rise  to 
xvi.  18  f.  But  the  evidence  does  not  amount  upon 
the  whole  to  much  more  than  a  possibihty.^ 

(iv)  Both  early  patristic  evidence  and  evidence 
from  the  Latin  versions  suppoirt  the  singular  read- 
ing of  John  i.  13  :  Who  was  horn.  The  canonical 
plural  reading  is  actually  described  by  Tertullian 
as  a  gnostic  corruption  of  the  text  (see  especially 
Zahn's  note  on  John  i.  13). ^  Li  reahty,  the  singular 
was  probably  an  early  modification  of  the  plural  in 
the  interests  of  the  growing  dogma  of  the  virgin- 
birth,   but  even  if  that  reading  were  adopted  it 

1  It  is  the  connection  of  the  threefold  name  with  baptism,  rather 
than  the  occurrence  of  the  former,  that  is  the  main  difficulty.  The 
threefold  name,  which  forms  the  basis  for  the  later  trinitarian 
speculations,  exists  already  in  Paulinism  ;  whether  the  form  of  2  Cor. 
xiii.  14  was  due,  as  Harnack  conjectures,  to  anti-Jewish  controversy, 
and  whether  the  alternative  form  of  God,  Christ,  and  the  angels 
(cf.  Luke  ix.  26 ;  1  Tim.  v.  21)  was  a  less  developed  stage,  we  have 
no  means  of  determining  exactly. 

2  It  is  also  read  by  Blass,  and  by  Resch  {Paralldtexte  zu  Johannes, 
pp.57f.). 

0 


34  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

would  not  follow  that  it  implied  such  a  dogma. 
It  would  rule  out  a  mother  as  well  as  a  father.  The 
context  simply  implies  that  the  children  of  the 
Father  owe  their  position  to  His  love  and  choice 
through  Jesus.  There  is  no  evidence,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  suggest  that  the  Word  became  flesh  by  the 
descent  of  the  Spirit  at  the  baptism.  The  mode  of 
the  incarnation  is  left  undetermined,  and  the 
christology  of  the  gospel,  like  that  of  Paul,  enters 
into  no  speculation  whatever  upon  the  subject. 
The  Son  was  sent ;  for  religious  purposes,  that 
thought  sufficed.  What  i.  13,  in  the  singular  as 
well  as  in  the  plural  reading,  asserts  is  the  sole 
activity  of  God,  as  opposed  to  human  initiative. 
The  plural  reading,  in  the  light  of  the  context, 
implies  that  to  be  bom  of  God  is  to  have  faith, 
and  that  this  is  due  wholly  to  divine  influence 
{You  did  not  choose  me,  it  was  I  who  chose  you) — 
a  characteristic  note  of  the  Fourth  gospel.  No 
satisfactory  reason  can  be  assigned  for  the  change 
of  the  singular  into  the  plural,  whereas  not  only 
dogmatic  but  even  grammatical  reasons  (the  imme- 
diately preceding  avrov)  would  explain  the  reverse 
process. 

It  is  probable  that  such  alteration  of  the  canonical 
texts  must  have  gone  further  than  is  commonly 
supposed,  or  than  the  present  state  of  the  texts 
enables  us  to  determine.  But  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
in  these  four  test  cases  the  doctrinal  alteration  is 
generally  in  the  line  of  sharpening  an  interest 
already  present,  not  for  the  purpose  of  introducing 
some  novel  dogma.  The  question  is  one  of  emphasis 
rather  than  of  addition.  The  messianic  endowment 
of  Jesus  as  Son  of  God  at  the  baptism,  the  association 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        35 

of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Spirit,  the  virgin-birth, 
and  even  the  leading  position  of  Peter  in  some 
circles  of  the  early  church,  are  vouched  for,  inde- 
pendently of  these  additions  and  expansions.  From 
the  theological  point  of  view,  they  mark  not  the 
incorporation  of  fresh  elements  so  much  as  the 
evolution  of  elements  which  were  already  present 
in  the  primitive  theology  of  the  gospels  them- 
selves. 

(d)  Finally,  there  is  the  minor  question  of  language. 
The  passage  of  the  tradition  in  its  pre-canonical 
stages  from  the  vernacular  Aramaic  to  the  written 
Greek  in  which  our  gospels  and  most  of  their  sources 
were  composed,  cannot  have  been  without  some 
effect  upon  the  contents  of  the  tradition  at  several 
points.  '  Whereas  Jesus  spoke  in  Aramaic,  the 
most  concrete  and  unmetaphysical  of  languages,  he 
is  reported  in  Greek,  the  most  metaphysical.'  ^  But 
it  is  almost  entirely  in  the  Fourth  gospel  that  this 
semi-metaphysical  tinge  appears  ;  when  we  attempt 
to  translate  the  synoptic  sayings  back  from  Greek 
to  Aramaic  the  results  are  rarely  of  importance, 
so  far  as  regards  theology.  There  is  nothing  about 
Himself  or  God  in  the  canonical  gospels  which  Jesus 
could  not  have  said  intelhgibly  in  Aramaic.  He 
could  even  have  called  Himself  Son  of  man  in  that 
language  without  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood 
(see  below.  Chapter  iv.).  The  appearance  of  the 
written  gospels  in  Greek,  after  the  earUer  Aramaic 
tradition,  which  was  for  the  most  part  oral,  had 
nothing  Hke  the  significance  for  their  theology 
which  the  later  adoption  of  terms  Hke  ovcria  and 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  Literature  and  Dogma  (popular  ed.,  1883), 
p.  144. 


36  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

persona  had  for  the  development  of  christology  in 
the  Church.  Christianity  as  we  know  it  has  come 
to  us  through  the  Greek  gospels,  and  for  the  purpose 
of  their  theology  it  is  seldom  necessary  to  take 
special  account  of  the  Aramaic  background  behind 
any  term  or  saying. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  better  here  and  elsewhere 
in  the  criticism  of  the  gospels  to  stand  back  from 
the  trees  in  order  to  see  the  forest.  Detailed 
exegesis  of  the  gospels  has  its  own  function ;  elaborate 
research  into  the  Aramaic  substratum,  the  minutiae 
of  the  literary  variants  between  the  gospels,  and 
the  special  features  which  differentiate  one  from 
the  other,  is  an  indispensable  discipline.  But  the 
common  faith  is  larger  and  deeper  than  such 
characteristics  and  idiosyncrasies.  They  are  usually 
eddies  or  currents  in  the  river.  They  are  differences 
of  the  second  and  third  degree,  seldom  if  ever  of  the 
first.  The  significant  thing,  for  the  theology  of  the 
gospels,  is  the  attitude  to  Christ  which  they  pre- 
suppose and  illustrate  in  different  ways,  the  funda- 
mental conviction  that  with  Jesus  a  new  relationship 
to  God  has  been  effected  and  inaugurated.  It  is 
uncritical  to  reach  this  common  postulate  by  the 
path  of  harmonising ;  the  gospels  show  how  it 
developed  gradually  and  how  various  aspects  of  it 
appealed  to  different  circles  in  the  early  church. 
But  it  is  equally  irrelevant  to  allow  the  mind  to 
become  absorbed  in  the  pursuit  of  exegetical  details 
till  it  loses  the  perspective  of  the  whole.  The 
open  secret  of  our  religion,  says  a  later  writer  ^  (quoting 
from  some  early  Christian  hymn),  is  admittedly  great 

1  1  Tim.  iii.  16. 


I.]        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY         37 

— He  who  was 

Manifested  in  the  flesh. 
Vindicated  by  the  Spirit, 
Seen  by  angels,  ' 

Preached  among  the  nations  of  men. 
Believed  on  throughout  the  world, 
Taken  up  to  heavenly  glory. 

The  theology  of  the  gospels,  unlike  Paulinism, 
has  no  place  for  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  revelation 
to  angelic  beings  after  the  resurrection, ^  but  it 
corresponds  to  the  remaining  features  of  this  primitive 
confession ;  the  modem  distinction  between  the 
historical  and  the  supernatural  in  the  vocation  of 
Christ  is  ignored,  and  the  essential  fact  of  Christianity 
is  found  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  By  common 
confession  that  was  the  distinctive  note  of  the  new 
rehgion,  which  was  struck  by  all,  whether  they  were 
writing  a  hymn  or  a  gospel.  The  mystery  or  open 
secret  was  the  personahty  of  Christ.  This  was 
what  distinguished  the  gospels  from  Judaism  and 
Hellenism  ahke,  and  it  is  a  difference  which  is 
immensely  greater  than  any  differences  between 
one  gospel  and  another.  As  early  as  the  second 
century  it  had  become  common  in  some  circles  to 
suppose  that  when  Paul  mentioned  my  gospel  and 
spoke  of  the  brother  whose  p-aise  in  the  gospel  ^  was 
widespread  throughout  the  churches,  he  was 
referring  to  a  written  gospel,  and  specifically  to  the 
gospel  of  Luke.  The  significance  of  this  error 
Hes  in  its  witness  to  a  particular  contemporary 
application  of  the  term  'gospel.'    From  denoting 

1  Cf,  the  Ascension  of  Isaiah,  x. 
S  2  Cor.  viii.  18. 


38  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

the  message  of  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  i.e.  the  Christian 
rehgion,  it  had  begun  to  centre  upon  the  acts  and 
words  of  Jesus,  and  then,  by  a  natural  evolution, 
upon  the  written  records  of  the  Lord's  Hfe.  The 
epistles  preached  Christ,  but  they  were  not  gospels. 
The  term  was  restricted  to  the  books  which  described 
what  Jesus  began  both  to  do  and  to  teach  until  the  day 
on  which  he  was  received  up.^  It  is  right  to  emphasise 
the  importance  of  this  singular  limitation  for  the 
history  of  the  Church,  if  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
it  indicates  '  to  what  an  extent  the  communication  of 
the  words  and  deeds  of  the  Lord  must  have  formed 
from  the  very  first  the  main  content  of  the  glad 
tidings,  when  the  two  were  denoted  by  the  same 
name  and  no  other. '^  The  epistles  and  the  gospels 
alike  sprang  out  of  the  Gospel,  but  it  was  only 
the  latter  form  of  early  Christian  composition  which 
drew  to  itself  the  sacred  name,  and  this  is  all  the 
more  striking  as  there  was  nothing  in  the  original 
meaning  of  the  Greek  term  or  in  the  literary  structure 
of  the  four  books  to  set  the  process  in  motion. 

Such  an  estimate  of  the  gospels  helps  to  deter- 
mine the  sense  of  what  '  theology  '  means  in  con- 
nection with  them.  By  '  theology  '  the  pre-Christian 
Greeks  meant  some  account  of  the  divine  beings  or 
being,  and  this  general  sense  of  the  term,  as  the 
conception  or  definition  of  the  God  worshipped  in 
any  given  religion,  reappears,  for  example,  in 
Hooker.3  'The  whole  drift  of  the  Scripture  of 
God,  what  is  it  but  only  to  teach  Theology  ? 
Theology,  what  is  it  but  the  science  of  things  divine  ? ' 

1  Acts  i.,  1. 

2  Harnack,  The  Constitution  and  Law  of  the  Churchy  p.  308. 
•  Eccles.  Polity,  Book  iii.  viii.  11. 


1.1        THE  GOSPELS  AND  THEIR  THEOLOGY        39 

Among  some  of  the  Greek  theologians,  however, 
the  term  came  to  have  a  more  restricted  range  ; 
it  was  confined  to  the  ascription  of  a  divine  nature 
to  Christ,  and  consequently  tended  to  become  a 
technical  expression  for  that  aspect  of  christology 
which  the  Logos  idea  of  the  Fourth  gospel  popularised. 
It  would  be  unbalanced  to  hold  that  the  gospels  are 
theological  in  the  latter  rather  than  in  the  former 
sense  of  the  term.  '  Theologia  deum  docet,  a  deo 
docetur,  ad  deum  ducit '  —that  is  true  of  the  gospels  ; 
even  in  the  Fourth  gospel  it  is  the  conception  of 
God  which  is  still  dommant,  though  the  person  of 
the  Son  has  assumed  a  larger  prominence,  relatively 
to  the  Father,  than  in  the  synoptic  tradition.  At 
the  same  time,  the  fundamental  interest  of  the 
gospels,  from  the  theological  point  of  view,  is  the 
divine  significance  of  Jesus,  just  as  there  is  also 
a  concentration  upon  His  personality  which  equally 
prevents  us  from  describing  or  from  treating  the 
theology  of  the  gospels  as  a  general  account  of  things 
divine  upon  the  basis  of  Christianity.  The  Fourth 
gospel  does  extend  its  survey  more  definitely  to  the 
relations  of  God  through  Christ  to  the  universe  as 
well  as  to  men,  but  even  this  cosmic  extension  has 
its  limitations,  and  it  is  far  from  making  the  person 
of  Christ  subsidiary  or  supplementary.^  We  shall 
proceed  therefore  to  discuss  first  the  God  of  Jesus  ; 
this  opens  up  into  the  question  of  the  person 
of  Jesus,  since  the  revelation  of  God  is  mediated 

1  *  The  centre  of  gravity  in  theology  can  never  be  shifted  from  the 
person  of  Christ.  The  Jesus  whom  we  call  Master  is  at  once  the 
historical  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  that  ideal  form  which  becomes  more 
and  more  glorious  as  man's  moral  capacity  increases'  (Cheyne  in 
Expositor,  sixth  series,  vol.  iii.  pp.  270-1). 


40  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

by  His  life  as  well  as  by  His  teaching ;  finally,  we 
shall  trace  the  evolution  of  the  conception  of  the 
Spirit  of  God  in  relation  to  Jesus,  which,  in  the 
Fourth  gospel,  furnishes  a  standpoint  for  inter- 
preting the  theology  of  the  gospels  in  general. 
Before  entering  upon  any  of  these  topics,  however, 
it  is  essential  to  face  the  eschatological  problem 
in  the  tradition,  not  simply  because  this  happens 
to  be  a  matter  of  special  interest  at  the  present 
day,  but  also  because  everything  depends  upon  the 
answer  which  we  give  to  the  question :  Is  the 
theology  of  the  gospels  an  eschatology  pure  and 
simple  ? 


U.J       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        41 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE   GOSPELS 

In  the  fifth  book  of  the  Prelude  Wordsworth  de- 
scribes how,  after  reading  Don  Quixote  on  a  summer 
day  beside  the  sea,  he  dreamed  a  dream.  He  seemed 
to  watch  a  Bedouin  Arab  riding  up  to  him  with  a  stone 
under  one  arm  and  a  brilhant  shell  in  the  other  hand. 
When  the  dreamer  held  up  the  shell  to  his  ear  he 

*  Heard  that  instant  in  an  unknown  tongue 
Which  yet  I  understood,  articulate  sounds, 
A  loud  prophetic  blast  of  harmony ; 
An  ode,  in  passion  uttered,  which  foretold 
Destruction  to  the  children  of  the  earth 
By  deluge  now  at  hand.' 

The  rigorous  and  vigorous  eschatological  theory  of 
the  gospels,  as  presented  by  a  critic  hke  Schweitzer, 
puts  a  similar  alternative  before  the  mind  :  the 
story  of  Jesus  is  either  a  stone,  meaningless  and 
unimpressive,  or  a  shell  in  which  you  hear  only  a 
loud  prediction  of  imminent  doom.  The  theology 
of  the  gospels  is  an  eschatology  or  it  is  nothing. 
What  Jesus  was  and  taught  is  unintelligible  except 
in  the  hght  of  His  intense  passion  for  setting  astir 
forces  that  would  deluge  the  world  with  all  the 
woes  which  usher  in  the  last  act  of  bliss  in  the 
supernatural  drama  of  the  universe. 

Schweitzer's  book,    Von  Reimarus  zu   Wrede,  is 


42  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

brilliantly  written.  It  has  had  the  further  advan- 
tages of  a  generous  notice  from  Dr.  Sanday  and  an 
exceptionally  good  rendering  into  EngUsh.^  For 
these  reasons  many  people  have  been  led  to  regard 
him  as  more  representative  than  he  really  is,  and 
by  scoring  points,  as  it  is  not  difficult  to  do,  against 
several  of  his  extreme  positions,  to  imagine  that 
they  have  succeeded  in  dismissing  the  claims  of 
the  eschatological  theory  which  he  champions.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  that  theory  is  more  persuasively, 
because  more  moderately,  presented  by  two  of  his 
predecessors.  Otto  SchmoUer  and  J.  Weiss,  the 
former  in  a  prize  essay  on  '  The  Doctrine  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  the  New  Testament  Writings ' 
(1891),  which  anticipated  the  issues  of  the  modem 
eschatological  movement,  the  latter  in  the  second 
edition  of  his  monograph  on  '  The  Preaching  of 
Jesus  about  the  Kingdom  of  God  '  (1900).  Words- 
worth closes  his  dream  by  telhng  how  the  Arab 
finally  said  he  intended  to  bury  the  shell  which  had 
sounded  the  prophecy  of  doom.  This  is  the  proper 
fate  for  the  rigid  eschatological  theory  of  the  gospels  ; 
we  have  no  use  as  historical  critics  or  as  Christians 
for  an  interpretation  of  Jesus,  however  brilUant, 
which  will  not  allow  us  to  hear  any  notes  in  His 
teaching  and  mission  except  those  of  imminent 
and  inevitable  catastrophe.  But  there  are  elements 
in  the  tradition  of  the  gospels  which  remain  even 
after  Schweitzer's  shell  is  buried,  elements  which 
render  the  precise  basis  and  range  of  the  eschato- 
logical outlook  in  the  theology  of  the  synoptic 
gospels  a  real  and  a  baffling  problem. 

1  The  Quest  of  the  Historical  Je-ins  (1910),  by  Rer.  "W.  Montgomery, 
Cf.  further  Dr.  Sanday's  Life  o^  Christ  in  Recent  Research. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        43 

The  problem  may  be  put  sharply  by  throwing 
two  words  ^  of  Jesus  into  juxtaposition.  Verily  I 
say  to  you,  There  are  some  of  those  standing  here  who 
shall  not  taste  of  death  till  they  see  the  kingdom  of 
God  arrive  with  'power.  Set  that  beside  this  :  So 
is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  if  a  man  should  cast  seed  on 
the  earth  ;  and  should  sleep  and  rise  night  and  day, 
and  the  seed  should  spring  up  and  grow,  he  knows  not 
how.  The  earth  hears  fruit  of  herself ;  first  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  But  when 
the  fruit  is  ripe,  straightway  he  putteth  forth  the  sickle 
because  the  harvest  is  come.  Here  there  is  a  cUmax 
in  view,  a  climax  which  has  a  messianic  ring  about 
it,  but  wliich  need  not  be  unauthentic  on  that 
account.  The  parables  contained  '  the  mystery 
of  the  kingdom,'  and  part  of  that  mystery  was  the 
new  and  startHng  conception  of  the  relation  of 
Jesus  to  it.  The  contrast  between  the  two  sayings 
is  not  that  the  one  contemplates  an  abrupt  crisis, 
while  the  other  looks  forward  to  a  long  gradual 
process  of  evolution  ;  it  is  that  the  denouement  is 
in  the  one  case  an  event  in  the  immediate  future 
which  is  identified  with  the  real  arrival  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  while  in  the  other  it  is  the  end  of  an  inward 
development  in  which  the  kingdom  is  regarded  as 
present  through  the  ministry  of  Jesus.  The  gospels 
contain  sayings  which  belong,  some  to  the  one  group, 
some  to  the  other.  The  problem  is  to  determine 
how  both  are  psychologically  possible  for  Jesus, 
and  to  what  extent  the  one  has  affected  the  other 
during  the  course  of  tradition  prior  to  the  canonical 
gospels.  Which  element  is  the  more  hkely  to  have 
been  accentuated  in  the  apostoHc  age  ?     Is  either, 

1  Mark  ix.  1  and  iv.  26-29. 


44  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

in  whole  or  in  large  measure,  due  to  the  tendencies 
and  interests  of  the  later  church  in  which  and  for 
which  the  gospels  were  drawn  up  ?  These  are  the 
kind  of  questions  which  are  started  by  the  presence 
of  the  eschatological  stratum  in  the  text  of  the  first 
three  gospels. 

The  first  three,  because  there  is  no  real  problem  of 
eschatology  in  the  theology  of  the  Fourth  gospel. 
f  There  are  problems,  but  not  of  eschatology  proper 
V  as  in  the  criticism  of  the  synoptists.  There  is  an 
outlook  now  and  then  upon  the  end,  but  the  dominant 
•interests  he  elsewhere,  in  the  eternal  hfe  which 
becomes  the  present  experience  of  those  who  put 
their  faith  in  the  hving  Christ.  Li  the  synoptic 
gospels  it  is  still  possible  to  trace  the  primitive 
tradition  that  Jesus  expected  His  return  as  messiah 
during  the  course  of  the  present  generation,  although 
He  did  not  know  the  exact  date  of  this  outward 
crisis  in  the  affairs  of  men.  It  is  probable  that 
the  influence  of  the  imminent  fall  of  Jerusalem 
helped  to  intensify  this  expectation  in  some 
Palestinian  circles  of  the  church,  but  it  was  not 
created  by  the  turn  of  events.  The  incorporation 
.  of  the  small  apocalyptic  fly-leaf  is  an  incidental 
:  proof  not  only  of  their  outlook  upon  the  situation, 
but  of  the  basis  which  that  outlook  must  have  had 
in  the  authentic  teaching  of  Jesus  Himself.  Matthew 
and  Luke  show  here  and  there  how  the  churches 
met  in  various  ways  the  need  of  a  wider  horizon 
for  the  prospects  of  the  Christian  faith,  chiefly  by 
laying  deeper  stress  on  the  religious  motives  and 
interests  of  the  eschatological  passion  which  Jesus 
had  voiced,  upon  His  absolute  confidence  that  His 
death  would  further  the  interests  of  the  kingdom, 


II.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        45 

His  calm  conviction  that  the  estabHshment  of  the 
kingdom  depended  on  the  will  of  God,  not  on  any 
circumstances  of  human  arrangement  or  enterprise, 
and  His  belief  that  in  the  reahsation  of  the  Father's 
good  purpose  for  men  He  was  destined  to  have  a 
commanding  place.  But,  even  with  this  alteration 
of  emphasis,  the  gospels  preserve  sajdngs  of  Jesus 
which  must  have  seemed  peiplexing  to  the 
widening  consciousness  of  what  was  involved  in  the 
Christian  enterprise.  These  saj^ngs  survive  because 
they  had  come  down  from  authentic  tradition  ;i 
probably  they  were  not  felt  to  be  so  strange  as  they 
seem  to  a  modern  reader,  but  at  any  rate  it  was  not 
till  later  that  another  evangehst  reinterpreted  the 
faith  in  a  form  which  was  not  bound  up  with 
eschatological  or  apocalyptic  categories.  He  did 
not  look  forward  to  see  the  glory  of  Christ ;  he  had 
seen  it,  he  saw  it,  in  the  Lord's  hfe  and  spirit  of 
self-sacrifice.  The  Coming  One  had  come.  It  was 
no  longer  a  question  of  anticipating  a  glory  of 
dramatic  interposition  from  the  clouds  of  heaven  ; 
in  the  person  of  Jesus  the  Son  all  that  was  glorious 
and  divine  was  manifested.^  Li  the  Fourth  gospel 
the  emphasis  is  shifted  from  the  return  to  the 
resurrection  of  Christ.  He  had  indeed  returned 
to  the  life  of  His  followers  in  fuller  measure  than 
before,  and  the  Spirit,  His  alter  ego,  meant  His  Hving 
presence  in  their  hearts  as  an  inspiring  and  reveahng 
power.  Life  eternal  is  not  an  eschatological  boon 
but  the  immediate  experience  of  faith.     The  judg- 

1  In  the  synoptic  tradition  this  glorifying  occurs  once,  during  the 
life  of  Jesus,  at  the  transfiguration,  when  the  imminence  of  His  death 
is  represented  as  eliciting  a  special  mark  of  approval  from  God  (of, 
the  Lucan  version,  ix.  32). 


46  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

ment  is  not  a  dramatic  catastrophe  at  the  close  of 
the  present  age  so  much  as  a  process  of  inward 
discrimination  conditioned  by  the  attitude  adopted 
by  men  to  the  person  of  Christ.^  It  is  through  the 
resurrection  that  the  real  victory  has  been  gained 
over  the  world — a  victory  of  Christ  as  the  giver  of 
eternal  life  over  death  and  the  flesh.  All  this 
transmutation  of  the  primitive  tradition  is  presented 
in  a  gospel  which  claims  that  such  spiritual  con- 
ceptions are  the  larger  truth  into  which  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  had  initiated  His  Church ;  in  modem 
phraseology,  it  is  asserted  that  they  are  an 
organic  development  of  the  gospel  for  which  Jesus 
stood. 

How  far,  and  how,  can  this  claim  be  justified  ? 
The  answer  to  such  questions  depends  upon  a 
critical  estimate  of  the  synoptic  tradition.  It  is 
not  enough  to  show  that  traces  of  what  may  be 
termed  (though  inadequately)  a  spirituaUsation  of 
the  eschatological  data  can  be  detected  already  in 
the  earlier  s3moptic  writers.  The  essential  point 
is  to  ascertain  whether  this  entire  movement  which 
culminates  in  the  Fourth  gospel  starts  from  elements 
which  are  vital  to  the  faith  of  Jesus  Himself ; 
not  only  that  He  occasionally  spoke  words  which 
cannot  be  fitted  into  any  thorough-going  eschato- 
logical theory  of  His  teaching,  but  that  His  con- 
ceptions of  God  and  the  kingdom  and  His  own 
person  involved  a  religious  attitude  towards  the 
future  which  did  not  find  congenial  or  complete 
expression  in  the  apocalyptic  categories  of  the 
age. 

1  The  germ  of  this  goes  back  to  Jesus  Himself;  it  is  an  expansion 
of  the  thought  which  underlies  Luke  xvii.  20. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        47 

It  is  more  than  a  mere  paradox  to  say  that  the 
first  thing  in  the  gospels  is  their  conception  of  the 
last  things.  The  theology  of  the  gospels,  Uke  every 
theology  which  arises  within  the  Christian  sphere, 
involves  a  teleology.  Whatever  value  we  assign 
to  the  eschatological  element  in  the  gospels,  there 
is  enough  of  it  to  bear  witness  to  this  vital  conviction 
of  the  religious  mind,  that  the  present  relation 
of  God  and  man,  the  hopes  and  endeavours  of  men 
on  earth,  and  the  entire  range  of  their  love  and 
loyalty,  are  unintelligible  except  in  the  light  of  a 
destiny  which  the  divine  purpose  has  been  and  still 
is  working  out  in  history.  In  religion,  as  Ritschl 
used  to  insist,  we  have  to  do  not  only  with  God  and 
the  soul,  but  with  God,  the  soul,  and  the  world. 
What  is  a  possession  of  the  soul  must  be  related, 
somehow,  to  the  world  of  which  the  soul  is  part  and 
over  which  the  soul's  God  is  Lord.  Theology 
means  a  conception  of  God  in  relation  to  the 
universe,  and  this  in  turn  implies  not  simply  a  sense 
of  the  divine  power  in  what  modems  describe  as 
Nature,  not  simply  a  valuation  of  God's  presence, 
but  a  conviction  of  His  purpose  as  the  end.  It  is 
the  end  which  gives  meaning  to  the  present.  The 
end  is  not  always  present  to  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, it  lies  sometimes  below  the  horizon ; 
but  it  is  always  there.  The  common  antithesis 
between  ethical  and  eschatological  breaks  down 
upon  examination.  Eschatology  was  not  void  of 
ethical  impulse  and  discipline  in  primitive  Chris- 
tianity ;  and  the  ethical  element  rested  on  an 
eschatological,  though  not  always  on  an  apocalyptic 
basis. 

How  organic  the  strictly  eschatological  element 


48  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

was  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  may  be  inferred  from 
the  mere  fact  that  the  saying,^ 

Heaven  and  earth  will  pass  away^ 
But  my  words  will  never  pass  away^ 

occurs  in  an  apocalyptic  context :  Truly  I  tell 
you  that  this  generation  will  not  pass  away  until  it 
all  comes  to  pass.  The  delay  which  confronted  the 
Church  when  the  synoptic  gospels  were  composed 
was  embarrassing,  but  the  eschatological  predictions 
of  Jesus  formed  so  vital  a  part  of  His  gospel  that 
they  were  retained  ;  in  fact,  as  the  insertion  of  the 
small  apocalypse  shows,  they  were  not  only  edited 
occasionally  by  way  of  smoothing  down  their  in- 
congruities with  the  subsequent  cause  of  events, 
but  also  now  and  then  sharpened  and  expanded. 
Thus  the  synoptic  gospels,  by  their  loyalty  to  this 
element  in  the  primitive  tradition,  confront  us 
with  the  paradox  that  the  most  confident  word  of 
Jesus  upon  the  permanent  value  of  His  sayings 
guarantees  the  very  class  of  sayings  which  appear 
to  be  least  permanent. 

Another  incidental  proof  of  this  element  and  of 
its  place  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  is  afforded  by  the 
survival  of  the  difficult  saying  ^ :  When  they  persecute 
you  in  this  city,  flee  to  the  other,  and  if  they  persecute 
you  in  the  other,  flee  to  the  next ;  for  truly  I  tell  you, 
You  will  not  cover  the  cities  of  Israel  before  the 
Son  of  man  comes.  The  sajdng  interrupts  the 
context,  and  its  Jewish  horizon  is  out  of  keeping 
not  only  with  passages  like  xxiv.  14,  xxviii.  19,  etc., 
but    with    the    words    immediately    preceding    it 

1  Mark  xiii.  31  ;  Matt.  xxir.  36 ;  Luke  xxi.  33. 
«  Matt.  X.  23. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        49 

in  verses  18  and  22,  which  presuppose  a  mission  to 
pagan  nations  beyond  the  pale  of  Israel.  The  point 
of  the  counsel  seems  to  be  that  the  evangeUsts  need 
not  be  afraid  of  exhausting  the  available  cities  of 
refuge  within  Palestine.  The  end  will  come  before 
ever  they  manage  to  get  over  them  all ! 

But  alongside  of  sayings  which  thus  prove  the 
predominance  of  the  apocalyptic  hope  within  the 
preaching  of  Jesus  there  are  others  which  suggest 
that  He  transmuted,  as  He  took  over,  this  belief  in 
the  near  advent  of  the  kingdom. 

(a)  There  are  several  sayings  which  imply  that 
Jesus  regarded  the  kingdom  as  a  present  reaUty  in 
connection  with  Hjs  own  person  and  teaching.  The 
chief  of  these  is  the  well-known  passage  in  Luke 
xvii.  20-1  :  On  being  questioned  by  the  Pharisees 
when  God's  kingdom  was  to  come,  he  replied,  God's 
kingdom  is  not  coming  tvith  observation,  nor  shall 
men  say,  Lo  here  /  or  Lo  there  4  for,  behold,  Gods 
kingdom  is  vnthin  you  (eVr^s  v/iwv  kamv).  Whatever 
was  the  original  Aramaic  of  this  saying,  it  is  upon 
the  whole  clear  that  Luke  took  it  to  express  the 
inward  character  of  the  kingdom.  Had  he  under- 
stood it  as  equivalent  to  a  statement  that  the  kingdom 
would  appear  suddenly  among  men,  he  would  have 
used  his  favourite  term  Iv  nio-o)  instead  of  hros. 
Even  if  Ivtos  meant  '  among,'  it  would  imply  most 
naturally  that  Jesus  described  the  kingdom  as 
already  present,  and  this  is  much  more  the  case  when 
we  render  it  '  within.'  The  word  you  does  not  rule 
this  out,  for  the  original  reference,  as  Wellhausen 
points  out,  was  not  confined  to  the  Pharisees.  '  The 
kingdom  of  God  here,  as  in  the  parable  of  the  leaven, 
is  conceived  as  a  principle  working  invisibly  in  the 

D 


60  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

hearts  of  individuals.'  The  phrase  fxera  Trapa- 
rrjpija-ews  means  that  the  signs  of  it  can  be  either 
seen  or  foreseen  externally.  Jesus  denies  that 
this  is  to  be  the  case  with  God's  Reign,  as  He  under- 
stood it  and  inaugurated  it.  As  He  said  elsewhere, 
no  sign  of  the  Reign  was  to  be  vouchsafed  to  the 
present  generation  except  such  inward  signs  and 
tokens  as  belonged  to  the  nature  of  the  Reign  itself. 
The  Lucan  saying  does  not  necessarily  exclude  a 
catastrophic  future  as  the  chmax  of  the  Reign ; 
it  simply  insists  that  the  Reign  of  God  is  already 
present  in  such  a  form  that  the  present  generation 
is  responsible  for  its  attitude  to  this  manifestation 
of  God. 

The  unlikelihood  of  the  ia-Tiv  being  proleptic 
in  this  sajring  is  heightened  by  the  cognate  saying 
of  Q  preserved  in  Matt.  xii.  28  (=Luke  xi.  20) : 
//  /  cast  out  demons  by  the  Spirit  [Luke  has,  the 
finger]  of  God,  then  God's  kingdom  has  already  come 
upon  you  (4'^^ao-ev  J^'  vfias).  This  does  not  mean 
that  the  kingdom  is  imminent,  as  though  the  cures 
and  exorcisms  of  Jesus  were  a  harbinger  of  the  new 
era  which  is  on  the  point  of  coming  ;  it  means  that 
the  new  era  has  already  begun  to  challenge  and 
invade  the  present  sway  of  the  devil  on  earth.  As 
the  context  indicates,  the  messianic  power  of  Jesus 
on  earth  denotes  an  inroad  upon  the  demons  who, 
under  Satan,  have  control  of  men,  and  this  inroad  is 
the  entrance  of  God's  kingdom  upon  its  final  career. 

Once  more,  this  line  of  thought  is  corroborated 
by  the  other  saying  from  Q  (Matt.  xi.  ll=Luke 
vii.  28)  upon  John  the  Baptist :  He  who  is  least 
within  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater  than  he  (John). 
It  is   conceivable   that  the  present  tense   here  is 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        51 

dramatic,  but  the  natural  and  literal  sense  is  more 
likely,  in  view  of  the  context.  John  had  sent  to 
make  sure  that  Jesus  was  really  the  messiah,  and 
the  reply  of  Jesus  is  followed  up  by  an  address  to 
the  crowd  upon  the  epoch-making  significance  of 
John  as  the  forerunner  of  the  new  messianic  era. 
No  man  yet,  says  Jesus,  has  been  greater  than  John  ; 
nevertheless,  he  only  stands  at  the  threshold  of  the 
kingdom.  Then  follows  the  word  about  the  storming 
of  the  kingdom  from  the  days  of  John  till  now,  which 
imphes  that  the  kingdom  was  within  reach  of 
earnest  men  when  Jesus  spoke.  He  was  conscious 
that  His  mission  was  fulfilHng  the  old  Isaianic 
prophecies.  His  reply  to  John  denotes  not  the 
sense  that  a  new  era  was  in  course  of  preparation, 
but  that  it  was  already  inaugurated,  and  it  is  of 
this  new  order  that  He  speaks. 

The  saying  which  immediately  follows  is  a  further 
proof  of  the  conception  of  the  kingdom  as  incipient 
in  the  ministry  of  Jesus  : — 

Matt.  xi.  12-13  Luke  xvi.  16 

From  the  days  of  John  the  Till  John,  the  law  and  the 

Baptist    until    now    the  prophets !  Thereafter  the 

kingdom  of  heaven  suffers  kingdoTn      of     God      is 

violence  and   the  violent  preached,  and  every  one 

press  into  it.  presses  into  it. 

For  all  the  prophets  and  the 
law  prophesied  till  John. 

In  Matthew  this  is  followed  up  by  the  remark : 
And  if  you  will  receive  it,  this  is  the  Elijah  who  was 
to  come,  which  gives  the  clue  to  the  previous  saying. 
Jesus  apparently  is  alluding  to  the  contemporary 
tradition   (cf .  Edujoth  8 ')  that  Ehjah  would  come 


62  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

'  to  exclude  from  Israel  those  who  had  been  received 
by  force,  and  to  receive  into  Israel  those  who  had 
been  excluded  by  force.'  This  dual  function,  of 
rejecting  members  who  had  forcibly  and  fraudulently 
claimed  a  place  in  the  community,  and  of  welcoming 
those  who  had  been  violently  shut  out  from  their 
rights,^  has  been  inaugurated,  Jesus  argues,  by 
John,  when  his  mission  is  properly  viewed.  Only, 
his  mission  reversed  the  popular  Jewish  idea.  In 
the  Christian  era,  dating  from  John's  movement, 
the  tax-gatherers  and  sinners,  hitherto  excluded 
on  the  score  of  their  disreputable  character,  are 
thronging  into  God's  kingdom  which  Jesus  preached, 
and  those  who  claimed  a  place  in  it  on  the  score  of 
birth  and  orthodoxy  are  being  excluded. 

Again,  when  the  high-minded  scribe  ^  delighted 
Jesus  by  confessing  not  only  that  God  was  one, 
but  that  to  love  him  with  the  whole  heart  and  the  whole 
understanding  and  the  whole  strength,  and  to  love  one^s 
neighbour  as  oneself,  is  far  more  than  all  holocausts  and 
sacrifices,  Jesus  told  him  :  You  are  not  far  from  God's 
kingdom.  This  word  implies  that  the  kingdom  is 
not  eschatological  but  present  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  order,  just  as  in  Matt.  xxi.  31  {The  tax- 
gatherers  and  harlots  are  entering  the  kingdom  of 
God  before  you)  and  xviii.  3-4. 

Sayings  like  this  amount  to  a  cumulative  proof. 
When  the  scribe  e.g.  is  told  that  he  is  not  far  from 
God's  kingdom,  and  when  the  wealthy  young  Jew 
is  asked  to  sell  all  his  property,  if  he  means  to  be 
perfect,  and  follow  Jesus,  the  underlying  idea  is 
practically  the  same,  that  adhesion  to  the  cause 
and  person  of  Jesus  Christ  is  the  condition  under 

1  Cf.  Luke  xi.  52.  «  M»rk  xii.  34. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        53 

which  the  sound  moral  Ufe  blossoms  into  the  flower 
of  a  true  faith  and  love  for  God.  Wellhausen 
endeavours  to  discount  the  force  of  such  passages 
by  identifying  the  kingdom  with  the  Church,  and 
arguing  that  this  identification  presupposes  the 
death  of  Jesus.  But  there  is  nothing  in  the  context 
of  either  passage  which  involves  the  death  of  Christ 
as  a  motive  for  such  adhesion,  and  in  the  cognate 
saying  about  the  least  in  the  kingdom  being  greater 
than  John  (who,  for  all  his  importance  to  the 
kingdom,  had  not  become  a  personal  disciple  of  Jesus) 
it  is  needless  to  discover  an  identification  of  the 
present  kingdom  and  the  Christian  Church.  What 
this  series  of  allusions  indicates  is  that  the  reign  of 
God  has  already  begun  in  some  sense  here  and  there 
on  earth.  It  is  no  answer  to  this  to  argue  that 
faith  would  then  be  superfluous ;  on  the  one 
hand,  the  visible  signs  of  the  presence  of  the 
kingdom  were  only  partial  and — we  might  almost 
say — preliminary,  and  on  the  other  hand,  such  as 
they  were  they  were  capable  of  misinterpretation. 
It  was  possible  to  deny  their  validity.  Zealots  who 
strained  their  eyes  for  signs  of  a  political  rising 
could  not  recognise  the  kingdom  in  unselfishness 
and  purity  of  heart  and  the  forgiving  spirit ;  where 
Jesus  saw  the  real  and  royal  presence  of  the  Father 
they  could  only  see  unpatriotic,  poor-spirited 
creatures.  It  was  the  same  with  some  of  the 
Pharisees,  in  their  own  way.  They  ascribed  the 
cures  wrought  by  Jesus  to  a  connivance,  on  His 
part,  with  the  devil.  What  He  recognised  as  signs 
of  the  divine  reign  on  earth,  due  to  the  working  of 
the  Spirit  through  His  personaHty,  they  dehber- 
ately  described  as  diabolic. 


64  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

The  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  the  expulsion  of 
demons,  as  proving  the  entrance  of  the  divine 
kingdom  upon  the  present  order,  implies  further 
that  He  extended  the  same  thought  in  other  directions. 
It  was  not  a  beUef  which  was  connected  simply 
with  what  is  called  the  supernatural  antagonism  of 
God  and  the  devil.  We  cannot  draw  such  a  dis- 
tinction for  the  world  of  Jesus.  The  heahngs  which 
He  effected  were  bound  up  with  the  forgiveness  of 
sins,  and  if  the  kingdom  was  present  in  the  anti- 
demonic  aspect  it  was  equally  present  in  the 
revelation  of  God's  character  and  purpose  through 
the  attitude  of  Jesus  towards  the  sinful  and  the 
burdened.  His  preaching  of  the  new  righteousness. 
His  revelation  of  the  Father's  nature  in  deed  as 
well  as  in  word,  constituted  an  immediate  proof  that 
the  relationship  to  God  which  He  called  Hfe  was  a 
present  gift.^  Jesus  looked  into  the  future  for  the 
final  ratification  and  consummation  of  the  gift, 
but  it  was  of  a  gift  already  bestowed  upon  the 
experience  of  trust  and  loyalty.  The  reality  of  the 
Reign  does  not  depend  for  Him  upon  the  dramatic 
denouement  of  the  apocalyptic  eschatology.  It 
is  the  reverse.  That  future  is  assured  by  the 
character  and  purpose  of  God  as  already  manifested 
in  His  mission  and  personaUty.  Jesus  never  uses 
the  term  '  hope,'  but  it  is  hope  in  the  Uving  God 
which  dominates  His  message,  hope  rising  from  a 
deep,  inward  consciousness  of  God's  loving  will  for 
men.  When  He  declared  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
at  hand  He  was  not  speaking  out  of  apocalyptic 
calculation,  but  from  His  assurance  that  through 

1  See  on  this  aspect  of  the  kingdom  Dr.  G.  F.  Barbour's  Philo' 
sophiccd  Study  of  Christian  Ethics,  pp.  186  f. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        65 

Him  God  was  about  to  exercise  the  sovereign  sway 
of  His  good  purpose.  The  avoidance  of  detailed 
calculations  may  have  been  due  in  part  to  His 
conviction  that  the  end  was  imminent ;  but  they 
were  superfluous,  for  a  deeper  reason.  It  was  His 
belief  in  God's  character  which  rendered  detailed 
schemes  and  programmes  of  the  future  irrelevant, 
just  as  it  convinced  Him  that  the  kingdom,  with 
its  apparently  unpromising  beginnings  in  the  pre- 
sent, was  sure  of  a  glorious  consummation. 

This  is  one  reason  why  Jesus  spoke  of  the  kingdom 
in  parables  and  occasionally  explained  their  meaning 
to  the  disciples.  His  conception  of  the  divine 
Reign  had  elements  of  novelty  which  did  not  tally 
with  current  ideas  on  the  subject.  The  parables 
contained  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom^  His  message 
on  the  nature  of  the  kingdom  was  a  revelation,  which 
only  the  sympathetic  could  understand.  Whether 
it  included  the  destiny  of  Himself  as  messiah  is  a 
question  which  is  more  easily  asked  than  answered. 
If  so,  and  if  the  explanations  contained  references 
to  His  own  future,  their  substance  has  been  preserved 
for  the  most  part  in  other  forms.  But  in  itself 
the  conjecture  is  not  altogether  improbable  ;  the 
messianic,  personal  background  shimmers  through 
Mark  iv.  29  and  xii.  6,  for  example.  His  view  of  the 
kingdom  impUed  teaching  about  His  relation  to  its 
character,  course,  and  end,  and  out  of  that  teaching 
some  of  the  passages  referring  to  the  death  and  resur- 
rection may  have  come.     In  any  case,  the  kingdom 

1  Mark  (iv.  11)  here  has  preserved  the  original  form  ;  the  plural  of 
Matthew  and  Luke  is  secondary.  The  *  mystery '  cannot  be  confined 
to  the  nearness  of  the  kingdom — that  was  openly  proclaimed  by  John 
the  Baptist  as  well  as  by  Jesus. 


56  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

parables  are  not  popular  illustrations  of  the  obvious.^ 
The  kingdom  as  He  revealed  it,  for  example,  had 
a  future  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  present  unim- 
pressive scale  and  size  on  earth  (Mark  iv.  30  f.). 
But,  again,  this  future  was  not  to  come  in  a  wholly 
cataclysmic  fashion  ;  its  growth  resembled  leaven, 
not  a  sudden  interposition  of  the  supernatural 
within  the  natural  order.  It  is  noticeable,  for 
example,  how  many  of  the  parables  are  directed 
against  impatience  for  the  speedy  advent  of  the 
kingdom.  This  appHes  not  only  to  the  parable  of 
the  seed  growing  secretly  (Mark  iv.  26-9),  which 
is  one  of  several  sayings  addressed  to  a  mood 
of  wonder  why  the  messiah  of  God  should  be  so 
inactive  in  the  Une  of  vigorous  challenge  and 
propaganda,  but  also  to  the  parable  of  the  ten 
virgins  (Matt.  xxv.  1-13),  which  warns  the  disciples 
to  be  prepared  for  delay  in  the  final  coming  of  the 
Lord. 

Consequently  the  paraboUc  instruction  of  Jesus 
was  doubly  surprising.  It  was  surprising  both  in 
form  and  in  context,  for  there  were  no  parables 
about  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  rabbinic  teaching, 
and  the  outline  which  Jesus  drew  of  the  character 
and  future  of  that  kingdom  ran  counter  to  some  of 
the  most  cherished  ideas  of  piety.  Its  messianic 
nature,  as  determined  by  the  Fatherly  purpose  of 
God,  involved  a  widening  of  its  range  which  sounded 
strange  to  contemporary  Judaism.  No  doubt,  the 
contemporary  use  of  '  malkuth '  in  Jewish  piety 
{e.g.  in  the  phrase  about  accepting  the  yoke  of  the 
divine  sovereignty)  tells  decidedly  against  the  view 

1  Cf.  on  this  Dr.  H.  B.  Sharman'f  Teaching  of  Jestcs  about  the 
Future,  pp.  315  f. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        57 

that  the  Reign  of  God  upon  the  Hps  of  Jesus  must 
have  been  eschatological  to  be  inteUigible.  The 
fact  of  Judaism,  with  its  observance  of  the  Torah 
and  its  worship  of  the  true  God,  was  a  witness,  even 
in  the  untoward  position  of  the  nation,  to  the 
divine  sovereignty.  It  is  true,  as  Volz  points  out, 
that  the  Reign  of  God  was  considered  to  have  not 
only  a  prospect  of  future  manifestation  but  already 
a  number  of  loyal  subjects  on  earth,  and  that  in 
both  of  these  respects  the  rabbinic  and  the  synoptic 
views  were  agreed.  Yet  '  in  spite  of  the  predomin- 
ance of  eschatological  sajrings  on  the  kingdom  in 
the  synoptic  gospels,  it  is  a  fact  that  Jesus  did 
transform  the  Reign  of  God  from  something  which 
was  eschatological,  prepared  already,  and  only  to 
be  waited  for  in  an  attitude  of  passivity,  into  some- 
thing which  developed  historically  and  which  was 
to  be  achieved  ;  He  thereby  converted  into  a  unity 
the  two  lines  (eschatological  and  inward)  of  the 
/Jao-tAeta  rov  6eov,  which  ran  parallel  in  the  theo- 
logical system  of  Judaism.'  ^  The  indications  of 
this  higher  synthesis  are  not  confined  to  the  say- 
ings which  have  just  been  noted  ;  they  are  borne 
out,  as  we  shall  see,  by  the  conception  which  Jesus 
had  of  God  and  of  His  own  vocation.  Meantime, 
however,  it  is  enough  to  lay  stress  upon  these  specific 
allusions  to  the  presence  of  the  kingdom  as  a  proof 
that  the  attitude  of  Jesus  to  this  eschatological 
hope  of  Judaism  can  hardly  have  been  so  rigid  as  the 
eschatological  theorists  make  out. 

{b)  In  the  second  place,  it  is  inaccurate  to  argue 
that    Jesus    conceived    the    kingdom    would    come 
without  any  effort  upon  the  part  either  of  Himself 
1  Judische  Eschatologie,  pp.  299-800. 


58  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

or  even  of  His  disciples.  He  regarded  His  own  death 
as  a  vital  stage  in  the  fulfilment  of  God's  purpose. 
It  was  the  will  of  the  Father  that  He  should  thus 
sacrifice  Himself  for  the  sake  of  men  ;  this  was  the 
outcome  of  His  consciousness  as  God's  Son,  who  was 
to  carry  out  a  role  Hke  that  of  Yahveh's  Servant 
(cf.  Chapter  rv.).  The  conception  of  the  throes  or 
birth-pangs  of  suffering  which  were  to  precede  the 
messianic  era  was  already  present,  but  this  was  not 
the  primary  source  of  the  impulse  which  led  Jesus 
to  seek  Jerusalem  and  suffer  there. 

Furthermore,  His  efforts  to  awaken  penitence  and 
to  sustain  earnest  prayer  for  the  kingdom  point 
to  a  behef  that  the  new  order  of  things  involved 
more  than  passive  expectancy  upon  the  part  of 
men.i  The  command  to  pray,  Thy  kingdom  come, 
was  more  than  an  injunction  to  breathe  a  pious  sigh 
for  the  future.  Jesus  believed  profoundly  in  the 
power  of  prayer  to  affect  even  the  will  of  God  in 
the  matter  of  the  coming  kingdom.  The  Father 
was  willing  to  be  entreated.  Men  must  be  content 
to  leave  the  how  and  when  in  His  hands,  but,  while 
Jesus  discouraged  any  attempt  hke  that  of  the  zealots 
to  force  the  issue,  and  while  He  disclaimed  any  know- 
ledge of  the  exact  period  of  the  crisis.  He  did  not 
inculcate  any  fatahsm.  The  burden  of  His  teach- 
ing on  prayer  is  that  man,  by  earnest  prayer,  by 
the  concentrated  effort  of  the  soul  in  devotion  and 
desire,  may  '  bring  the  power  of  faith  to  bear  upon 
the  divine  purpose.'  ^ 

This  is  an  aspect  of  the  kingdom  to  which  modem 

1  This  is  the  thought  of  Acts  iii.  19-20  and  Matt.  ix.  37-38. 

2  Cf.  Prof.  E.  F.  Scott's  The  Kingdom  and  the  Messiah,  pp.  134  f., 
where  this  point  is  admirably  argued. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        59 

readers  often  find  it  difficult  to  do  justice ;  they 
are  under  the  influence  of  preconceptions  about 
natural  law,  and  in  looking  back  to  the  age  of  Jesus 
they  are  apt  to  identify  His  sayings  about  the  divine 
intervention  with  a  sort  of  Oriental  fatalism.  But 
the  theology  of  the  gospels,  and  especially  theii 
eschatology,  is  not  intelUgible  unless  it  is  realised 
that  Jesus  meant  by  prayer  more  than  resignation 
to  the  will  of  God.  A  later  writer  once  said  that 
Christians  should  not  only  look  out  for  but  actually 
hasten  the  arrival  of  God's  Day,i  and  this  is  the 
thought  which  underlies  the  teaching  of  Jesus  upon 
the  kingdom  as  an  object  of  prayer.  The  faithful 
are  to  wrestle  with  God  for  the  speedy  accomplish- 
ment of  His  purpose  ;  the  Fatherly  goodness  of  God 
and  His  royal  authority  forbid  prayer  becoming 
a  form  of  dictation  or  a  wild,  impatient  complaint, 
but  they  invite  the  earnest  efforts  of  the  faithful  to 
hasten  His  interposition.  All  this,  again,  is  hopelessly 
inconsistent  with  the  uncompromisingly  predestin- 
arian  view  of  the  eschatologists. 

(c)  Thirdly,  there  are  sections  of  the  ethical  teach- 
ing in  the  synoptic  gospels  which  cannot  be  brought 
under  the  eschatological  category,  as  if  Jesus  only 
taught  conduct  which  was  appropriate  to  the  interval 
preceding  the  final  advent  of  the  kingdom.  It  is 
not  eschatology  which  suppHes  e.g.  the  motive  for 
loving  one's  enemies,  or  the  point  of  stories  Hke 
those  of  the  good  Samaritan  and  the  profligate  son. 
The  tendency  of  an  ultra-eschatological  view  here 
is  either  to  depreciate  the  moral  teaching  of  Jesus 
or  to  reduce  His  interest  in  the  present  world  to  some 
casual  glances  which  were  irrelevant  to  His  main 

1  2  Peter  iii.  12. 


60  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

passion  for  the  future.  Jesus  was  much  more  than 
an  ethical  teacher.  He  was  a  prophet  and  more 
than  a  prophet.  But  His  conception  of  God  renders 
it  impossible  for  us  to  believe  that  His  teaching  upon 
character  and  conduct  was  transitory,  and  sub- 
ordinate in  principle  to  the  eschatological  hope  of 
the  coming  kingdom.  In  the  beatitudes,  for  example, 
there  is  not  simply  a  description  of  those  who  are 
predestined  to  the  future  kingdom.  Jesus  lays 
down  the  quaUties  and  characteristics  which  belong 
to  the  kingdom  itself,  and  endeavours  to  prepare 
men  for  it  by  inducing  repentance  or  a  change  of 
heart  and  Ufe.  He  is  enunciating  the  laws  and 
principles  of  the  coming  reign,  when  God  is  to  rule 
as  the  Father  over  men,  and  He  shows  how  even 
during  the  present  age,  with  its  handicaps  and 
hindrances,  men  may  observe  these  laws  and  enter 
into  the  Spirit  of  the  Father.  The  future  coming 
of  the  kingdom  will  alter  many  of  the  conditions  of 
the  present  order.  But  it  will  belong  to  men  just 
as  they  are  already  quaUfied  to  receive  it ;  the  new 
righteousness,  which  is  its  soil  and  atmosphere, 
is  implicit  in  the  present  relations  of  men  to  God 
which  Jesus  seeks  to  create  and  foster.  To  read 
the  gospels  as  if  they  meant  that  Jesus  despaired 
entirely  of  the  present  world,  or  as  if  His  ethical  teach- 
ing were  provisional  and  temporary,  is  to  throw  His 
mission  even  more  out  of  focus  than  if  the  apocalyptic 
element  were  explained  away  altogether.  For 
example,  His  argument  against  amassing  riches  is  not 
that  this  is  not  worth  a  man's  while,  since  the  final 
catastrophe  is  so  near ;  it  is  that  such  a  concentra- 
tion of  heart  upon  outward  possessions  is  at  variance 
with  a  free  devotion  to  the  Father.     Or  again,  in 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        61 

speaking  of  marriage  He  never  takes  up  the  position 
that,  in  view  of  the  imminent  end,  such  natural  ties 
had  better  be  left  alone.  It  was  Paul,  not  Jesus, 
who  said  :  The  fashion  of  this  world  is  passing  away 
.  .  .  the  time  is  shortened  (1  Cor.  vii.  26  f.),  and  used 
this  consideration  of  the  present  distress  to  dis- 
courage marriage. 

Both  in  Q  and  in  Mark,  in  the  former  more  than 
in  the  latter,  there  are  strata  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  which  do  not  rest  upon  the  eschatological 
passion  for  the  urgency  of  the  end,  and  these  strata 
belong  to  the  most  characteristic  of  the  gospels. 
It  is  necessary  to  read  the  latter  with  a  sense  of 
proportion.  The  mind  of  Jesus  is  larger  than  the 
apocalyptic  theory  would  allow,  and  no  sort  of 
justice  is  done  to  it  unless  the  absolute  vahdity 
which  He  attached  to  the  truths  of  pardoning  love, 
trust  in  God,  and  the  higher  righteousness  is  candidly 
admitted.^ 

These  three  considerations  bring  out  the  critical 
attitude  of  Jesus  to  the  current  conception  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  an  attitude  due  to  the  new  reUgious 
ideas  for  which  He  made  it  the  vehicle.  No  doubt, 
the  outlook  of  Jesus  upon  the  future  is  not  to  be 

1  Loisjr  {Jisus  et  la  Tradition  Evangeliqice,  pp.  127,  131)  puts  this 
frankly.  'L'idee  du  regne  de  Dieu  s'epanouissait  en  doctrines  ou 
Ton  pent  discerner  trois  elements :  le  nationalisme  traditionnel,  ou  ce 
que  le  Dieu  d'lsrael  fait  pour  son  peuple ;  une  regie  de  vie  morale, 
qui  se  fonde  sur  un  principe  de  religion  universelle ;  la  traniforma- 
tion  du  monde,  le  triomphe  complet  de  Dieu,  pour  que  I'elite  d'lsrae 
et  de  I'humanite  puisse  jouir  paisiblement  du  bonheur  dans  la 
justice.'  In  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  *le  nationalisme  de  l'idee  se 
trouve  en  partie  corrige  par  I'importance  essentielle  donn^e  a  son 
aspect  moral,  soit  en  ce  qui  regarde  les  moyens  de  sa  realisation, 
soit  en  ce  qui  regarde  les  conditions  requises  pour  etre  admii  an 
royaume.' 


62  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

conjfined  to  sayings  about  the  kingdom  ;  it  embraces 
a  wider  prospect,  just  as  the  emphasis  upon  the 
present  reahty  of  the  divine  Reign  emerges  in  sections 
of  His  teaching  which  are  not  specifically  connected 
with  the  ;8ao-iAet'a.  But  naturally  it  was  the  con- 
ception of  the  divine  Reign  of  the  Father  which 
embodied  most  of  the  characteristic  ideas  of  Jesus, 
and  it  is  here  that  the  antinomy  of  the  present  and 
the  future  is  most  sharply  expressed. 

The  Greek  term  ^acriAeta,  as  used  in  the  gospels, 
is  better  translated  '  reign  '  or  '  sovereignty '  than 
'  kingdom  '  in  perhaps  the  majority  of  instances. 
The  latter  rendering  suggests  associations  of  organisa- 
tion and  territory  which  are  misleading,  and  even 
although  it  has  to  be  retained  for  the  sake  of  general 
convenience,  the  sense  attached  to  it  must  be 
primarily  the  personal  rule  of  God  over  His  people, 
the  divine  government  as  realised  through  the 
faithful  obedience  of  men  to  their  royal  Father  in 
heaven  ;  in  a  word,  '  reign  '  rather  than  *  domain.' 
Now,  the  coming  of  God's  kingdom  with  power  is  the 
final  return  of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  man  within  the 
present  generation  (Mark  viii.  38-ix.  1),  and  Matthew 
makes  this  explicit  by  his  version  of  the  second 
saying  (xvi.  28),  which  substitutes  the  Son  of  man 
coming  in  His  kingdom  for  the  kingdom  of  God  come 
in  power.  Incidentally,  it  is  a  proof  of  the  com- 
parative independence  of  the  Marcan  christology  as 
against  the  Pauline  (cf.  Rom.  i.  4),  which  assigns 
the  full  power  of  Christ  as  Lord  to  the  resurrection, 
not  to  the  second  advent ;  but  primarily  it  bears 
witness  to  the  urgent  hope  of  Jesus.  Whether  He 
spoke  of  the  kingdom  simply,  or  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  is  indifferent.     The  usage  of  the  gospels  varies 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        63 

on  this  point  significantly.  Thus  Mark  and  Luke 
alike  speak  of  the  kingdom  or  the  kingdom  of  God, 
while  Matthew's  favourite  expression  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  (17  /SacnXtLa  twv  ovpavcov) — a  phrase  which, 
apart  from  two  allusions  in  the  gospel  of  the  Hebrews 
and  the  Fourth  gospel  (iii.  3,  5),^  is  peculiar  to 
Matthew  among  the  early  gospels.  It  denotes  a 
kingdom  already  present  and  prepared  in  heaven, 
and  on  the  point  of  being  estabhshed  on  earth  by 
the  intervention  of  God.  Whether  the  addition  of 
heaven  is  connected  with  the  Jewish  impersonal 
synonym  for  God,  or  whether  the  phrase  in  Matthew 
has  a  specially  transcendental  and  eschatological 
value,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  Its  usage  may  form 
part  and  parcel  of  the  increased  eschatological 
element,  which  is  prominent  in  Matthew ;  or,  it 
may  have  been  altered  in  Mark  and  Luke  into 
expressions  which  were  more  intelligible  to  Greek 
and  Roman  Christians.  It  is  doubtful  if  Matthew 
intended  to  draw  any  sharp  distinction  between  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  as  the  future  realm  to  be  intro- 
duced by  the  Son  of  man,  and  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  in  a  sense  present  upon  earth.  In  two  of  the 
references  to  the  latter  the  reading  is  uncertain 
(vi.  33,  xix.  24),  and  more  than  once  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  used  in  a  sense  which  is  not  necessarily 
eschatological  {e.g.  xi.  11,  12;  xiii.  31;  xxiii.  13). 
In  any  case,  the  primary  eschatological  sense  of 
/SacnXeta  as  the  Reign  is  brought  out  by  its  use  and 

1  Also  in  the  Oxyrhynchite  logion  (second  of  second  series).  The 
reading  in  John  is  doubtful,  but  in  any  case  Matthew's  phrase  is  not 
an  approximation  to  the  Johannine  idea  of  the  Father's  house 
(xiv.  2,  4),  as  if  the  pious  were  to  be  taken  up  to  the  kingdom  in 
heaven. 


64  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

context   in    many   other   passages   of  the   gospels, 
apart  altogether  from  the  addition  of  twv  ovpavwv. 

On  one  or  two  occasions,  e.g.  in  Matt.  xxi.  43 
{The  kingdom  of  God  shall  he  taken  from  you  and  given 
to  a  nation  which  produces  its  fruits),  the  term  is 
used  in  a  more  popular  and  general  sense  ;  it  is 
implied  that  the  Jews  as  the  ancestral  people  of  God 
possess  it  now  in  the  sense  of  the  theocracy.  Their 
acknowledgment  of  God  as  King  means  their  posses- 
sion of  the  kingdom  here  and  now,  though  their 
refusal  of  Jesus  is  to  deprive  them  of  this  privilege. 
But  such  a  use  is  exceptional.  Equally  exceptional 
is  the  occasional  use  by  Jesus  of  the  phrase :  My 
kingdom.  Thus  Luke  (xxii.  29-30)  makes  Him  speak 
of  the  realm  as  His  own  :  /  bequeath  to  you  a  realm, 
as  my  Father  bequeathed  to  me,  that  you  may  eat  and 
drink  at  my  table  in  my  realm.  John  characteristically 
emphasises  this  aspect  of  the  realm  in  one  of  his  rare 
allusions  to  it  (xviii.  34  f.)  :  Pilate  said  to  Him,  Are 
you  the  king  of  the  Jews  ?  .  .  .  Jesu^  replied.  My 
realm  does  not  belong  to  this  world.  In  a  sense  the 
divine  realm  might  be  said  to  belong  to  the  Son  of 
man  as  the  divine  inaugurator  of  it.  A  priori,  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Jesus  may  have  spoken 
of  it  as  His.  But  the  eschatology  of  the  gospels 
does  not  include  the  conception  of  a  ^ao-iAeta  Xpta-rov, 
as  distinguished  from  the  (Saa-iXiia  d^ov.  J.  Weiss  ^ 
has  argued  that  the  language  of  Matt.  xiii.  41  and 
Mark  ix.  1  involves  such  an  idea,  corresponding 
to  the  PauHne  view  in  1  Cor.  xv.  24  f.  and  Col.  i. 
13  ;  but  this  double-stage  interpretation,  which  he 
admits  was  not  held  by  Jesus,  is  not  absolutely 
essential  to  either  of  these  sayings  in  the  gospels. 

1  Fredigt%  pp.  40  f. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        65 

The  Marcan  passage  does  not  rest  on  an  antithesis 
between  the  kingdom  in  weakness  and  in  power. 
The  former  notion  would  never  have  occurred  to 
the  early  church,  and  it  is  pressing  language  into 
dogmatic  moulds  to  find  a  difference  between  the  Son 
of  man's  kingdom  and  the  Father's  in  the  Matthean 
parable.  Elsewhere  the  kingdom  is  called  Christ's 
(Matt.  xvi.  28,  xx.  21),  in  a  way  which  suggests  that 
the  distinction  is  one  of  aspect  rather  than  of  stages. 
It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  changes  made  by 
Paul  and  the  apostoHc  church  in  Christ's  concep- 
tion of  the  kingdom,  and  to  notice  how  several  of 
its  cardinal  items  are  expressed  often  in  other  terms  ; 
but  it  is  more  important  to  ascertain  the  modifica- 
tions which  Jesus  Himself  introduced  into  the  signifi- 
cance of  this  ancient  behef.  Thus,  He  stood  aside 
from  the  traditional  view  that  the  present  Reign 
of  God  in  Israel  would  sometime  and  somehow  pass 
into  a  world-wide  recognition  of  God  as  Israel's 
God  by  the  nations,  as  well  as  from  the  cognate 
hope  that  the  future  would  witness  the  overthrow 
of  the  Roman  power,  which  represented  the  con- 
temporary antithesis  of  the  divine  Realm.  The 
subtle  favouritism,  the  nationalistic  idea  of  God,  and 
the  external  rehance  on  poUtical  methods,  which 
were  involved  in  such  hopes,  were  ahen  to  Jesus.  A 
large  number  of  messianic  expectations  looked 
forward  to  a  national  re-estabHshment  of  Judaism 
as  the  sovereign  power  ;  others,  of  a  more  specifically 
apocalyptic  character,  soared  into  the  transcendental 
region  of  a  heavenly  Jerusalem  and  a  supernatural 
change  to  be  effected  in  the  universe.  The  former 
occasionally  blended  with  the  latter ;  the  one  took 
over  elements  from  the  other.     The  messiah  now 


66  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

and  then  became  a  transcendent,  supernatural 
figure  rather  than  a  Davidic  scion,  and  the  heavenly 
order  of  the  new  age  was  more  than  once  presented 
in  forms  which  owed  something  of  their  definiteness 
and  popularity  to  the  reaUstic  messianism  of  the 
older  prophecies.  The  theology  of  the  gospels 
shows  in  outline,  but  without  ambiguity,  how  Jesus 
stood  towards  this  heterogeneous  and  many-sided 
conception.  So  far  as  the  advent  and  future  of 
the  divine  Reign  went.  He  approximated  to  the 
position  of  the  Pharisees  rather  than  to  that  of  the 
Zealots.  The  latter  are  opposed  in  several  of  His 
exphcit  sayings  against  the  use  of  force,  but  His 
indifference  to  their  patriotic  propaganda  is  even 
more  significant.  Probably  it  gave  more  mortal 
offence.  '  At  great  pohtical  crises  he  who  opposes 
the  patriots  is  not  so  Ukely  to  be  considered  their 
worst  foe,  as  he  who  ignores  them.  It  was  not  that 
our  Lord  preached  submission  to  Rome,  though  no 
doubt  the  decision  as  to  the  tribute  money  was 
capable  of  being  represented  in  that  fight — ^it  was 
that  He  roused  a  spirit  which  moved  in  another 
plane  than  that  of  resistance  or  submission  to 
imperial  power.'  ^  On  the  other  hand.  He  differed 
radically  from  the  Pharisees  on  the  question  of  the 
repentance  and  righteousness  which  were  essential 
to  inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  God  to  come. 
History  and  experience  had  disiUusionised  the 
Pharisees.  They  saw  that  the  coming  of  the  divine 
Reign  on  earth  must  be  an  act  of  God  in  the  dim 
future,  which  would  be  supernatural,  not  brought 
on  by  any  rebelfion  against  the  power  of  Rome. 
Like  the  Sadducees,  though  for  higher  motives,  they 

I  Miss  Wedgwood,  The  Message  of  Israel^  p.  305, 


n.]        THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         67 

were  prepared  to  acquiesce  temporarily  in  the 
status  quo  of  the  Roman  suzerainty.  The  nation- 
ahst  and  political  form  of  the  messianic  hope  was 
therefore  challenged  on  two  sides  :  by  the  more 
transcendent  expectation  of  a  Davidic  Son  of  man 
which  appealed  to  some  apocalyptic  circles,  and  by 
the  temper  which  discountenanced  any  messianic 
movement  as  dangerous.  Jesus  undoubtedly  was 
in  more  sympathy  with  the  former  than  with  the 
latter,  but  the  kingdom  which  He  preached  was  of 
so  unique  a  character  that  it  enabled  the  Pharisees 
to  make  capital  out  of  His  supposed  anti-Roman 
tendencies,  just  as  it  disappointed  those  who  secretly 
expected  that  a  messiah  would  be  at  least  sympathetic 
with  the  patriotic  hopes  of  the  popular  mind  about 
the  restoration  of  the  kingdom  to  Israel. 

The  eschatological  element  of  the  kingdom  in 
the  preaching  of  Jesus  was  not  merely  apocalyptic, 
however.  Apocaljrptic  was  invariably  eschatological, 
but  eschatology  was  not  invariably  apocalyptic.  A 
closer  analysis  of  the  transcendental  apocalyptic 
idea  in  Judaism  shows  that  this  very  passion  for 
a  vivid  effective  revelation  of  God  in  the  immediate 
future  involved  frequently  a  spiritualising  tendency, 
and  the  criticism  of  the  gospels  lays  bare  the  striking 
fact  that  the  Jesus  who  shared  this  form  of  eschato- 
logical hope  believed  in  a  God  who  was  by  no  means 
the  distant  deity  of  conventional  apocalyptic,  but 
a  living,  loving  Father.^  The  belief  of  Jesus  in  God, 
which  is  fundamental  for  the  valuation  of  the  eschato- 
logical element  in  the  gospels,  is  a  warning  against 

1  Jesus  uses  the  term  'kingdom'  where  the  rabbis  often  spoke  of 
'the  age  to  come ' ;  He  never  uses  ' kingdom '  as  a  periphrasis  for  the 
more  direct  expression  of  God's  real  and  immediate  intervention. 


68  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

all  rough-and-ready  identifications  of  the  message 
of  Jesus  on  the  kingdom  with  the  apocalyptic  schemes 
in  whose  dialectic  many  of  His  sayings  happen  to 
be  couched.  It  is  in  His  conception  of  God,  more 
than  in  the  derivative  conception  of  the  kingdom, 
that  we  can  discover  the  faith  for  which  He  lived 
and  died.  As  Grod  the  Father  was  not  merely  or 
even  mainly  an  object  of  hope  for  Himself  or  for 
men,  it  followed  that  the  Realm  or  Reign  could  not 
be  relegated  exclusively  to  the  age  to  come  ;  much 
less  could  it  be  confined  to  the  sons  of  Israel.  The 
kingdom  to  Jesus  was  not  an  abstract,  vague  con- 
dition of  humanity,  but  neither  was  it  defined  in 
terms  of  an  antithesis  to  the  pagan  powers  of  the 
world.  It  was  the  order  and  sphere  of  bliss  for 
men,  bhss  being  conceived  as  perfect  loyalty  to  the 
will  of  the  Father,  or  as  Life  (cf.  Matt.  viii.  22, 
Luke  XV.  32,  Mark  ii.  19,  Matt.  xii.  28)  in  the  fullest 
sense  of  the  term ;  and  both  aspects  (the  latter 
marks  a  transcending  of  the  eschatological  idea) 
were  related  to  the  special  functions  which  the 
Christ  of  God  had  to  discharge  in  order  that  men 
might  participate  in  the  fellowship  of  heaven.  Thus, 
the  kingdom  was  to  come  for  the  Jews,  but  not 
because  they  were  Jews,  and  not  for  Jews  only ; 
the  condition  of  entrance  was  not  a  punctilious 
observance  of  the  Torah,  as  the  Pharisees  interpreted 
it.  If  Jesus  ever  hoped  that  Israel  as  a  whole  would 
repent,  He  appears  soon  to  have  realised  that  the 
religious  authorities  and  the  mass  of  the  people  were 
obdurate.  He  had  more  hope  of  the  world  in  general 
than  of  His  own  people,  and  He  faced  death,  not  in 
a  mood  of  eschatological  desperation,  but  in  the 
consciousness  that  His  self-sacrifice  would  avail  to 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         69 

redeem  the  mder  circle.  As  the  Son  of  the  Father, 
who  loved  men  in  spite  of  their  sins ;  8>s  the  Servant 
of  God  who,  in  His  great  pity  and  love,  was  willing 
to  suffer  in  order  to  redeem  men,  He  went  with  hope 
and  courage  to  the  cross.  The  conviction  that  He 
must  die,  to  carry  out  the  Father's  purpose,  would 
carry  with  it  the  hope  of  resurrection  as  a  triumph 
over  the  forces  of  death  and  sin,  but  the  inspiration 
of  this  hope  lay  in  His  profound  faith  ;  He  drew  it,  as 
He  drew  the  consciousness  of  God  the  hving  Father 
which  sustained  it,  from  His  inward  communion 
with  the  Father,  not  from  an  apocalyptic  dogma 
about  the  prospects  of  the  kingdom. 

The  vital  element  in  this  apocalyptic  phase  of  the 
theology  which  the  gospels  present  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  what  Jesus  thought  and  beheved,  is  not 
simply  a  heroic  faith  in  the  power  of  God  to  carry 
out  His  purpose  of  regeneration  and  redemption 
for  men  amid  conditions  which  intimidated  and 
discouraged  all  but  the  most  ardent  souls  on  earth. 
It  is  that.  When  these  things  begin — physical  cata- 
strophes, supernatural  terrors,  national  convulsions 
— take  heart  and  lift  up  your  heads,  for  your  redemp- 
tion is  drawing  near?-  But  it  is  more  than  that. 
This  confidence  in  the  power  and  goodness  of  God 
is  bound  up  with  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
eschatological  hope  anticipates  a  future  in  which 
the  bhss  and  rehef  are  mediated  through  the  divine 
Christ ;  God  is  to  reign  over  a  people  for  whom 
Jesus  has  given  His  hfe  as  a  ransom,  for  whom  He 
has  shed  His  blood,  to  bring  them  into  the  new 
relationship  of  sons  to  the  heavenly  Father.  Finally, 
the  future  hope  lays  a  moral  obligation  upon  those 

1  Luke  xxi.  28. 


70  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

who  cherisli  it.  Ethical  excellence  does  not  win 
the  kingdom,  but  without  the  ethical  temper  of 
unworldliness  it  cannot  be  received.  Take  heed  to 
yourselves,  lest  your  hearts  he  overlaid  by  debauchery 
and  drunkenness  and  worldly  cares,  and  so  that  Day 
come  on  you  suddenly  like  a  snare.  For  come  it  will 
on  all  who  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  Be 
watchful  and  pray  at  every  season  that  you  may  have 
strength  to  escape  all  that  is  coming  to  pass,  and  to 
stand  in  presence  of  the  Son  of  mun.  It  is  the  eschat- 
ological  hope  which  supplies  at  least  the  motive  for 
the  counsels  to  watchfulness  and  zeal  during  the 
interval  of  waiting.  The  developing  theology  of  the 
gospels  shows  how  the  early  Christians  gradually 
became  sensible  that  faith  in  God  and  in  the  future 
was  not  necessarily  bound  up  mth  this  or  any  other 
apocalyptic  expectation ;  but,  even  in  transcending 
the  primitive  eschatology,  they  carry  on  the  religious 
and  ethical  instinct  which  it  embodied  ;  they  attest 
the  fact  that  the  attitude  of  Jesus  to  the  future 
kingdom  meant  neither  a  purely  supernatural  deity, 
nor  an  attitude  of  passive  unethical  expectancy  upon 
the  part  of  men,  nor  an  order  of  things  in  which  His 
own  person  was  transcended. 

But,  while  this  process  of  reflection  is  carried  out 
most  fully  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  the  synoptic  gospels 
reveal  the  antinomy  of  the  present  and  the  future 
within  the  consciousness  of  Jesus — an  antinomy, 
without  which  the  subsequent  developments  of  the 
primitive  Christian  theology  are  inexphcable.  The 
kingdom  is  to  be  inherited  and  entered  when  He 
returns.  That  is  the  one  side,  attested  by  a  score 
of  sayings.  The  other  side  is  that  God's  reign  has 
begun  with  His  messianic  mission,  that  it  is  not 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         71 

simply  imminent  but  actually  inaugurated  in  measure. 
This  consciousness  of  the  present  era  as  the  climax 
of  the  past  and  the  beginning  of  a  glorious  future 
is  expressed  or  implied  in  a  whole  series  of  passages, 
but  one  of  the  most  explicit  is  the  beatitude  (Matt, 
xiii.  16-17=Luke  x.  23-4)  of  Q— 

Blessed  are  your  eyes  for  they  see, 
and  your  ears  for  they  hear  : 
I  tell  you, 

many  prophets  and  just  men  have  desired  to  see 
what  you  see, 

but  have  not  seen  it : 
and  to  hear  what  you  hear, 

but  have  not  heard  it. 

There  is  nothing  here  of  the  '  ul  ten  iris  ripae  amor,' 
which,  according  to  the  rigid  eschatological  theory, 
was  the  mood  invariably  inculcated  by  Jesus.  He 
felicitates  the  disciples  on  the  revelation  of  God 
which  they  were  privileged  to  enjoy  in  their  inter- 
course with  Himself,  here  and  now.  It  was  an 
experience  which,  as  He  elsewhere  urges,  carried 
rich  promise  for  the  future  of  the  kingdom,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  a  present  reality  ;  the  disciples 
saw  the  fulfilment  in  Jesus  of  the  long-expected 
redemption  of  God,  and  heard  the  notes  of  the  final 
message  of  good  news  for  man.  This  is  a  word 
which  shows  the  new  era  had  begun  with  Jesus  ;  it  is 
not  merely  that  He  was  in  the  future  to  herald  the 
Reign  of  the  Father,  butthatalready  He  was  inaugurat- 
ing it  by  His  presence  and  vocation  among  men.  The 
consciousness  of  God  and  of  God's  purpose  which 
breathes  in  a  saying  hke  this,  reveals  a  range  of 
mind  which  is  deeper  and  wider  than  any  apocalyptic 


72  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

theory  of  the  gospel  can  embrace.  Such  a  concep- 
tion of  the  messianic  kingdom  betrays  an  originality 
and  independence  which  throws  a  pencil  of  hght  on 
a  number  of  other  passages,  and  the  problem  is  to 
harmonise  it  psychologically  with  the  cross-light 
thrown  by  the  futuristic  sayings. 

(i)  The  first  explanation  of  such  an  antinomy, 
which  occurs  to  the  mind  of  a  modem  critic,  is  that 
it  must  be  due  to  the  differences  between  the  religion 
of  Jesus  and  the  later  standpoint  of  the  apostolic 
churches  which  more  or  less  deliberately  moulded 
the  tradition  of  that  rehgion  to  the  current  interests 
and  preconceptions  of  the  day.  The  influence  of 
this  factor  may  be  traced  in  various  directions, 
without  much  trouble.  It  is  clear  that  the  gospels 
have  not  only  laid  special  stress  upon  some  eschato- 
logical  sayings,  but  '  eschatologised '  others  which 
originally  had  no  reference  to  the  future,  {a)  The 
incorporation  of  the  small  apocalyptic  tract  in  Mark 
xiii.=Matt.  xxiv. ;  (6)  the  eschatological  setting  and 
shape  given  by  Matthew  to  the  saying  on  the  Way 
(vi.  13),  and  to  the  (vii.  21)  word  about  the  formal 
use  of  '  Lord,  Lord,'  whose  original  reference  is  pre- 
served by  Luke  (vi.  46)  ;  (c)  the  saying  about  the 
first  and  the  last,  which  has  been  changed  in  the 
course  of  transmission  from  a  law  of  the  present 
life  (connecting  with  the  situation  of  Mark  ix.  35  f. 
Luke  xxii.  26)  into  details  of  the  eschatological 
future  ;  (d)  the  homiietic  application  of  tlie  refer- 
ence   to   Jonah   (Matt.   xii.    40)  ;  ^    (e)   finally,   the 

1  This,  like  the  sharpening  of  the  prediction  about  rising  on  the 
third  day,  or  after  three  days,  is  apostolic  ;  it  also  marks  the  begin- 
ning of  the  tendency  to  elaborate  the  descensus  ad  inferos,  which 
otherwise  has  no  place  in  the  theology  of  the  gospels. 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         73 

eschatological  turn  given  by  Luke  (xviii.  1  &.)  to 
the  parable  of  the  widow  and  the  judge,  which  seems 
originally  to  have  inculcated  the  duty  of  constant 
prayer,  but,  perhaps  owing  to  the  word  '  avenge,' 
to  have  been  adapted  to  a  special  situation  of  the 
early  church ; — these  are  only  specimens  of  the 
process  at  work,  but  they  will  suffice  to  indicate 
its  general  character  and  motives. 

A  fair  example  of  the  opposite  movement  is  afforded 
by  Matthew's  version  of  the  beatitudes,  which  tends 
to  bring  out  not  only  their  spiritual  but  their  immedi- 
ate aspect  more  than  is  the  case  with  Luke.^  Most 
of  the  data  which  point  in  this  direction,  however, 
are  special  sayings  for  which  there  is  no  parallel  in 
any  of  the  other  two  gospels. 

The  Hkelihood  is  that  both  processes  were  at  work 
within  the  early  church.  There  are  passages  in  the 
gospels  where  the  intense  belief  of  Jesus  that  the 
crisis  would  arrive  suddenly  and  speedily  has  been 
smoothed  down,  or — if  we  choose  to  say  so  — 
spiritualised ;  there  are  others  where  the  inward- 
ness of  His  teaching  may  be  conjectured  not  unfairly 
to  have  been  somewhat  narrowed  during  the  course 
of  transmission  through  the  Palestinian  communities. 
The  evidence  for  these  modifications  is  drawn  ulti- 
mately from  an  analysis  of  the  sjnioptic  tradition 
which  is  rather  hypothetical  so  far  as  it  rests  upon 
Q.  We  can  hardly  be  sure  enough  of  the  lattet's 
contents  to  enable  us  to  say  whether  its  eschatology 


1  Luke's  probable  omission  of  Thy  kingdom  come  (in  original  text 
of  li.  3-4),  apparently  on  account  of  its  eschatological  association, 
or  because  of  the  semi-political  connotation  which  it  might  suggest 
to  Gentile  readers,  is,  however,  noticeable,  especially  in  view  of  hig 
change  (xix.  38)  in  the  cry  of  the  crowd  at  the  entry  into  Jerusalem. 


74  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

was  of  a  less  developed  type  than  that  of  Mark.  Such 
a  conclusion  assumes  too  readily  that  Q  did  not 
contain  much  if  any  of  the  material  which  happens 
to  be  preserved  in  Mark ;  besides  it  depends  largely 
on  the  decision  between  the  relative  merits  of  the 
Lucan  and  Matthean  versions.  But  apart  from 
what  is  problematical  on  this  hne  of  reconstruc- 
tion, it  must  be  admitted  that  the  movement  of 
early  Christian  theology  which  Paul,  for  example, 
represents,  i.e.  the  movement  from  a  predominating 
to  a  subordinate  eschatological  interest,  need  not 
have  been  typical  of  the  apostoHc  rehgion  as  a 
whole.  Whatever  date  we  assign  to  Mark,  and 
whatever  his  relation  to  Q  may  have  been,  the  pro- 
babihties  are  that  the  attitude  of  the  early  church 
to  the  eschatological  tradition  of  Jesus  was  not 
homogeneous  and  stereotyped.  The  apocalyptic 
temperature  would  rise  and  fall,  partly  according 
to  circumstances,  partly  according  to  the  inherited 
temperament  of  certain  circles.  In  estimating  the 
effect  of  the  early  church's  beUefs  upon  the  words 
of  Jesus  and  also  upon  the  record  of  His  ministry, 
it  is  fair  to  allow  for  the  possibihty  that  there  was 
a  tendency  in  some  quarters  to  give  an  eschatological 
and  somewhat  conventional  turn  to  the  tradition, 
just  as  in  other  circles  and  at  other  periods  the 
opposite  drift  would  prevail.  The  latter  tendency 
is  apt  to  engross  the  attention  of  the  modem  student, 
especially  in  view  of  the  culmination  which  is  pre- 
sented in  the  Fourth  gospel,  but  the  former  is  not 
to  be  overlooked,  It  is  true  that  upon  the  whole 
there  is  a  broad  movement  of  thought,  illustrated 
by  Pauhnism,  from  the  more  to  the  less  with  regard 
to  apocalyptic  eschatology,   from  the  kingdom  to 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        75 

the  Church  as  the  centre  of  interest ;  but,  as  the 
history  of  early  Christianity  and  the  internal  data 
of  the  synoptic  gospels  indicate,  this  was  not  by 
any  means  uniform.  The  more  realistic  and  primi- 
tive view  repeatedly  found  expression,  and  there 
are  traces  of  it  in  the  special  modifications  which 
Matthew  and  Luke  more  than  once  introduce  into 
the  tradition. 

There  are  serious  objections,  however,  to  a  posi- 
tion hke  that  of  Wellhausen  on  this  point.  He 
attributes  the  strictly  eschatological  emphasis  to  the 
later  Church,  and  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
theory  that  Jesus  was  bound  up  in  an  eschatological 
series  of  predictions.  On  the  other  hand,  while  he 
recognises  in  the  parables,  for  example,  distinct 
traces  of  the  conception  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  a  present  reahty,  present  in  germ  within  the  situa- 
tion which  the  parables  presuppose,  he  identifies 
the  kingdom  as  present  with  the  Church,  and  thus 
practically  removes  from  the  teaching  of  the  historical 
Jesus  not  only  the  definitely  eschatological  element, 
but  the  complementary  references  to  the  present 
order  of  the  divine  kingdom.  The  weakness  of  this 
position  is  not  that  it  recognises  the  influence  of  the 
apostoHc  church  upon  both  sides  of  the  preaching 
of  Jesus  ;  it  is  the  dogmatic  standard  which  Well- 
hausen imposes  upon  the  historical  materials.  The 
Jesus  who  is  left,  after  both  of  the  deductions  have 
been  made  which  are  considered  necessary,  is  not 
a  Jesus  who  by  His  teaching  or  actions  could  have 
given  rise  to  such  a  movement  as  the  early  Christian 
faith.  There  is  not  enough  left  in  His  teaching  or 
in  His  personaUty  to  account  either  for  the  visions 
which,  according  to  Wellhausen,  produced  the  belief 


76  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

that  He  had  risen  from  the  dead,  or  for  the  forms 
which  that  beUef  assumed  within  the  primitive 
theology. 

(ii)  The  source  of  such  antinomies  in  the  preaching 
of  the  kingdom  really  hes  deeper  than  any  interaction 
of  a  primitive  tradition  and  a  later  consciousness  of 
the  apostolic  church.  It  was  not  the  theology  of 
the  gospels  which  created  them  all ;  some  of  them, 
and  some  of  the  most  vital,  go  back  to  the  very  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  Himself.  The  element  of  apoca- 
lyptic eschatology  cannot  be  eliminated  from  His 
preaching,  and  neither  can  the  stress  laid  upon  the 
kingdom  as  in  a  true  sense  present,  Uke  a  germ,  in 
His  personal  ministry  among  men.  Unless  the 
latter  is  admitted,  no  less  than  the  former,  the 
subsequent  development  of  early  Christian  theology 
is  not  easily  explained,  and  we  are  obliged  to  explain 
away  with  more  ingenuity  than  historical  success 
some  authentic  features  of  the  mission  of  Jesus.  It 
is  a  further  problem  to  do  justice  to  the  presence 
of  both  elements  within  the  consciousness  of  Jesus 
— a  problem  which  belongs  ultimately  to  the  study 
of  His  hfe.  Did  the  eschatological  interest,  it  may 
be  asked,  belong  specially  to  one  period  of  His 
teaching  ?  Was  it  mainly  due  to  the  influence  of 
John  the  Baptist,  and  did  He  gradually  reach  a  more 
inward  conception  of  the  kingdom  through  deeper 
reflection  and  experience  ?  Or  was  the  apocalyptic 
passion  thrown  up  by  the  later  experiences  of  Israel's 
obduracy  ?  Did  the  earlier  preaching  of  God  the 
Father,  and  of  the  sonship  of  men  through  trust 
and  obedience,  give  place,  during  the  period  after 
Csesarea  Philippi,  to  a  definitely  messianic  propa- 
ganda which  found  its  climax  and  heart  in  the  near 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         77 

future  ?  A  solution  of  the  problem,  on  such  psycho- 
logical and  historical  lines,  has  been  more  than  once 
attempted.  The  former  hypothesis  imphes  that  the 
gospel  of  Mark  has  antedated  the  prospect  of  suffer- 
ing in  the  record.  This  is  not  absolutely  impossible  ; 
on  other  grounds  it  has  been  conjectured  that  the 
cycle  of  conflict-stories  in  ii.  1-iii.  6  belongs  probably 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  xii.  Both  hypotheses  are 
complicated,  however,  by  the  inadequate  evidence 
afforded  by  the  sources  (as  we  have  them)  for  any 
vital  development  of  this  chronological  character. 
Neither  can  do  more  than  furnish  an  approximate 
hint  for  the  grouping  of  the  data  ;  the  augmenting 
of  the  eschatological  element  after  Caesarea  Philippi, 
for  example,  is  obvious,  but  the  element  itself  is 
not  wholly  absent  from  the  previous  teaching. 
Instead  of  distinguishing  periods  or  successive 
phases  it  is  better  to  allow  for  the  varying  emphasis 
laid  by  Jesus  on  different  aspects  of  the  kingdom. 
Less  weight  attaches  to  another  hypothesis  that  the 
sayings  which  seem  to  denote  any  presence  of  the 
kingdom  really  express  no  more  than  the  speaker's 
intense  conviction  that  it  was  imminent,  as  if  in 
saying  '  it  is  here,'  he  meant  to  declare  vividly,  '  it 
is  upon  you.'  This  might  apply  to  one  or  two 
phrases,  but  it  does  not  cover  all.  It  is  not,  in  fact, 
upon  the  interpretation  of  a  few  isolated  passages 
that  the  solution  of  the  problem  depends,  but  on 
the  general  messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus,  which 
has  to  be  estimated  from  a  wider  range  of  evidence. 
If  any  series  of  phases  could  be  made  out  from  the 
synoptic  material,  it  would  be  on  the  Hnes  adum- 
brated by  Baldensperger  in  his  monograph,  Die 
messianisch-apokalyptischenHojfnungen  des  Judentums 


78  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

(1903)  :  a  preliminary  stage  in  which  the  conception 
of  the  kingdom  for  the  most  part  resembled  the 
ordinary  apocalyptic  view,  then  a  phase  during 
which  it  became  more  inward  and  occasionally  even 
a  present  reaUty  in  some  sense  for  Jesus,  and  finally 
a  fresh  presentation  of  the  kingdom  as  transcen- 
dental and  future.  Baldensperger  does  not  claim, 
of  course,  that  these  phases  were  definitely  succes- 
sive. They  overlapped  ;  the  point  of  view  repre- 
sented by  the  second,  for  example,  in  the  central 
paraboHc  teaching,  was  not  entirely  absent  from 
the  first  or  the  third.  As  we  have  them,  the 
gospels  probably  support  a  theory  hke  this  better 
than  almost  any  other,  and  the  very  appearance  of 
complication  which  chngs  to  it  is  a  better  proof  of 
genuineness  than  the  simplicity  which  the  others 
claim.  Life,  as  Jesus  found  it  in  the  messianic 
vocation,  with  new  ideals  to  realise  and  convey, 
was  not  simple.  The  complexity  of  the  situation 
involved  a  changing  emphasis  on  various  aspects 
of  the  kingdom,  and  anything  is  better  than  to 
attempt  an  explanation  of  his  experience  by  crush- 
ing it  into  a  strait  formula,  or  by  regarding  it  as  the 
undeviating  pursuit  of  an  eschatological  ideal. 

(iii)  Neither  is  it  feasible  to  argue  that  Jesus 
simply  employed  pictorial  forms  of  thought  and 
language,  often  drawn  from  eschatological  tradi- 
tion, to  express  His  deeper  faith,  and  that  the  evan- 
gelists not  only  misplaced  some  of  these  sayings, 
but  often  failed  to  do  justice  to  their  imaginative 
and  plastic  character.  There  is  force  in  this  con- 
tention, but  it  does  not  furnish  a  complete  clue  to 
the  problem.  The  abuse  of  metaph.r  has  certainly 
been  one  of  the  standing  errors  in  theology  :   either 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        79 

too  much  or  too  little  has  been  made  of  it,  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  words  of  Jesus.  The  Oriental 
picturesqueness  of  His  teaching  has  often  been 
ignored  or  minimised,  with  unfortunate  results  for 
the  appreciation  of  His  ethics  as  well  as  of  His 
theology ;  and  in  the  opposite  direction,  under  the 
fear  of  modernising,  we  are  apt  to  make  serious 
mistakes  by  insisting  that  Oriental  expressions  in 
the  gospels  must  be  taken  hterally.^  It  is  possible 
that  even  the  evangelists  were  not  free  from  the 
latter  tendency,  not  because  they  were  not  Orientals, 
but  because  their  standpoint  was  lower  than  that 
of  the  rehgious  genius  of  Jesus.  His  language  was 
often  poetic  and  figurative.  He  frequently  spoke 
in  a  popular  metaphorical  style,  which  was  admir- 
ably effective  for  His  purpose  of  impressing  the 
conscience  and  imagination,  and  it  is  hopelessly 
prosaic  to  deduce  theological  inferences  from  such 
dramatic  or  vivid  expressions.  As  the  Old  Testa- 
ment prophets  are  enough  to  show,  preaching  in 
its  highest  reaches  inevitably  assumes  an  almost 
lyric  or  symboUc  note  ;  its  aim  is  to  suggest  and 
inspire,  not  to  use  words  of  which  it  can  be 
said  pedantically  '  this  means  that.'  We 
can  recognise  this  figurative  element  in  such 
sayings  as  these  :  //  you  have  faith  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed,  you  would  say  to  this  sycamine  tree^ 
Be  thou  rooted  up  and  be  thou  planted  in  the  sea  ;  and 
it  would  have  obeyed  you — /  came  not  to  bring  peace 
but  a  sword ;  or,  in  another  direction,  in  the  vivid 
and  passionate  intensity  which  throbs  under  such 

1  There  are  some  apposite  remarks  upon  the  valuation  of  Hebrew 
metaphor  and  allegory  in  Professor  B,  H.  Kennett's  In  Our  Tongues 
(1907).  pp.  7  f. 


80  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

concentrated  demands  as  that  a  disciple  shall  hate 
his  father  and  mother,  or  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead. 
These  tremendous  requirements  witness  to  the  white 
heat  with  which  Jesus,  in  moments  of  supreme 
tension,  viewed  the  devotion  requisite  to  His  cause 
on  earth.  Or,  again,  when  He  exclaimed,  with 
reference  to  the  success  of  the  disciples  in  their 
mission,  /  saw  Satan  fall  from  heaven  like  lightning^ 
the  metaphorical  note  is  quite  audible.  This  does 
not  mean  that  Jesus  spoke  of  Satan  and  demons 
figuratively  ;  the  kingdom  of  God  which  as  messiah 
he  had  come  to  inaugurate,  meant  the  collapse  of 
that  hierarchy  of  evil  spirits  which  He  beheved  were 
in  control  of  the  present  age.  But  it  does  mean 
that  His  language  even  upon  such  subjects  must 
be  interpreted  naturally  and  freely,  and  that  some 
of  His  eschatological  utterances  were  vivid,  semi- 
allegorical  expressions  which  were  never  intended 
to  be  taken  hterally.  It  is  too  easy  to  Hteralise 
the  symbolic  or  poetic  element  into  an  unreal 
estimate  of  what  He  said  and  meant.  When  the 
profligate  son  in  the  parable  came  to  his  sober  senses 
and  returned  to  his  home,  with  moral  penitence 
triumphing  over  false  pride  and  shame,  he  acted 
upon  his  behef  in  his  father's  unwearied  affection. 
By  a  moral  act  of  trust  he  determined  to  cast  himself 
upon  the  parental  love  from  which  he  had  foohshly 
and  wilfully  broken  away.  And,  when  he  was 
restored,  the  terms  of  the  welcome  were  :  This,  my 
son,  was  dead  and  is  alive  again,  he  was  lost  and  he  is 
found.  It  would  not  be  safe  to  infer  from  this  that 
the  words,  e.g.,  of  Matt.  xi.  4  f.  are  to  be  taken  allegori- 
cally.  It  is  possible,  but  not  certain,  that  when 
Jesus  said,  The  dead  are  raised  up,  He  meant  the 


n.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         81 

quickening  of  life  in  the  penitent.  But  some  place 
must  be  left  for  this  symbolic  and  pictorial  element 
in  the  apocalyptical  teaching  of  Jesus.  When  He 
said,  //  you  are  willing  to  receive  it,  this  is  Elijah,  who 
is  to  come,  He  was  enunciating  a  principle  which 
underlay  more  than  His  estimate  of  John  the  Baptist. 
There  was  a  freedom  in  the  way  He  expressed  current 
and  conventional  ideas,  as  well  as  in  the  way  He 
recast  them.  To  make  allowance  for  this  does  not 
carry  us  to  any  final  solution  of  the  apocalyptic 
antinomy  in  His  preaching,  but  it  is  one  considera- 
tion which  is  essential  to  an  adequate  estimate  and 
statement  of  the  data  in  question.^ 

No  one  of  these  proposed  solutions  is  really 
satisfactory.  Each  contributes  some  element,  but 
neither  singly  nor  collectively  do  they  yield  any 
vahd  answer  to  the  question.  Ultimately  it  is  an 
historical  problem,  for  a  study  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  Jesus  rather  than  for  the  theology  of  the 
gospels.  The  latter  assumes  both  elements  and 
correlates  them  with  less  difficulty  upon  the  whole 
than  a  modem  reader  finds,  partly  because  personal 
piety  is  seldom  sensible  of  theological  difficulties  to 
the  point  of  embarrassment,  partly  because  the 
synoptic  gospels  at  anyrate  were  composed  mainly 
under  the  same  time- view  as  that  under  wliich  Jesus 

1  *  Our  modern  notions  of  Christ's  eschatology  are  often  based  on 
an  underrating  of  the  extent  to  which  He  used  material  imagery,  and 
of  the  extent  to  which  He  was  absorbed — whereas  His  disciples  were 
by  no  means  similarly  absorbed — in  spiritual  thought.  .  .  .  We 
Christians  go  wrong  in  poring  over  the  apocalyptic  imagery  without 
bearing  in  mind  that,  if  it  came  from  Christ,  it  was  used  according  to 
Hebrew  prophetic  precedent  by  One  whom  we  believe  to  have  been 
more  spiritual  than  any  Hebrew  prophet.' — Abbott,  The  Son  of 
Man,  3583. 

F 


82  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

ECmself  lived  and  thought.  The  vital  point  to  be 
grasped,  however,  is  that  neither  the  apocalyptic  nor 
the  present  emphasis  can  be  ruled  out  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  on  the  kingdom.  And  if  any  psychological 
aid  is  sought  in  order  to  meet  the  situation  which  is 
thus  created,  the  theology  of  Paul  supphes  what  we 
want.  It  is  instructive  to  recollect  how  this  synthesis 
of  the  present  and  the  future  is  corroborated  by  the 
religious  mind  of  Paul.  The  apocalyptic  form  of 
eschatology  which  even  to  the  end  remains  in  the 
background  of  his  doctrine  did  not  prevent  him  from 
recognising  that  the  kingdom  was  already  a  present 
experience  of  believers,  through  the  Spirit  of  the 
risen  Christ.  The  kingdom-idea,  for  him,  is  only 
one  of  several  categories  ;  it  has  not  the  central 
position  that  it  occupies  in  the  theology  of  the 
gospels.  The  '  family-aspect,'  which  is  present  in 
the  teaching  of  Jesus,  is  developed  by  Paul,  particu- 
larly in  connection  with  his  view  of  adoption.  But 
he  speaks  of  the  kingdom  as  present  in  the  authority 
of  an  apostle,^  and  of  the  kingdom  as  denoting 
righteousness,  joy,  and  peace  in  the  Holy  Spirit, 
as  the  sphere  of  Cliristian  service,^  and  as  the  posi- 
tion of  forgiveness  and  fellowship  into  which 
Christians  have  already  entered.  Tlie  Christian 
hope  looks  forward  to  the  appearance  of  Christ ; 
the  resurrection  is  not  undervalued  ;  but  the  period 
of  the  divine  Reign  has  begun.  '  God  has  delivered 
us  from  the  power  of  darkness  and  transferred  us 
into  the  kingdom  of  His  dear  Son.'  ^  We  have  no 
business  to  assume  that  what  was  possible  to  Paul 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  Jesus.  The  very  fact  that 
an  eschatological  background  lies  behind  most  of 
I  1  Cor.  iv.  20.  2  Rom.  xiv.  17  f.  »  Col.  i.  18. 


II.]       THE  ESCHATOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS        83 

Paul's  sayings  about  the  present  kingdom  emphasises 
the  organic  character  of  the  latter  to  a  religious  view 
of  the  Reign  of  God,  and  serves  to  buttress  the  con- 
viction that  Jesus  was  not  bound  rigidly  to  a  futur- 
istic hope.  Here  as  elsewhere  the  disciple  is  not 
greater  than  his  master.  If  the  primitive  theology 
of  the  church  succeeded  in  penetrating  to  some 
consciousness  of  the  present  kingdom,  under  the 
experience  of  the  Spirit,  it  is  an  inversion  of  proba- 
bihties  to  deny  that  the  mind  of  Jesus  was  unequal 
to  such  a  range  and  depth  of  insight.  It  is  necessary 
even  to  assume  that  the  Pauhne  position  must  have 
been  anticipated  by  that  of  the  Lord  in  this  respect. 

Jesus,  then,  used  not  only  apocalyptic  language 
but  apocaljrptic  ideas,  at  certain  moments  of  His 
life.  If  we  cannot,  without  arbitrariness,  read  all  His 
teaching  and  actions  in  the  Hght  of  an  eschatological 
enthusiasm,  we  cannot,  without  almost  equal  violence, 
eliminate  the  realistic  eschatological  hope  from  the 
record  of  His  career.  At  the  beginning,  as  at  the 
end.  He  was  sustained  by  the  belief  that  the  kingdom 
was  close  at  hand.  This  was  the  form  taken  by 
His  faith  in  God's  purpose  of  goodwill ;  it  was  not 
merely  the  form  into  which  the  early  church,  in 
the  over-eagerness  of  its  messianic  ardour,  threw 
His  teaching  on  the  kingdom.  But  the  essential 
significance  of  the  kingdom  for  Jesus  is  not  to  be 
found  by  interpreting  it  in  the  Hght  of  earher  or 
contemporary  apocalyptic  hopes.  The  kingdom 
var.ed  even  there  with  the  particular  conception 
of  God  or  of  messiah,  and  when  Jesus  took  over 
this  ancestral  hope  of  Judaism,  He  modified  it 
inevitably  by  connecting  it  with  His  prosounder 
conceptions  of  God's  nature  and  of  His  own  destiny. 


84  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [CH. 

This  transmutation  of  the  idea  gives  the  starting- 
point  for  the  development  which  culminated  in  the 
Fourth  gospel,  by  showing  that  the  stress  upon  the 
inward  and  present  aspect  began  not  with  the  early- 
church  but  with  Jesus  Himself.  As  Von  Dobschiitz  has 
happily  expressed  it,  '  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  there 
is  a  strong  hne  of  what  I  would  call  transmuted 
eschatology.  I  mean  eschatology  transmuted  in  the 
sense  that  what  was  spoken  of  in  Jewish  eschatology 
as  to  come  in  the  last  days  is  taken  here  as  already 
at  hand  in  the  lifetime  of  Jesus  ;  transmuted  at  the 
same  time  in  the  other  sense  that  what  was  expected 
as  an  external  change  is  taken  inwardly  :  not  all 
people  seeing  it,  but  Jesus'  disciples  becoming  aware 
of  it.'  ^  The  reasons  for  this  transmutation  He  in 
Jesus'  consciousness  of  God  as  the  Father  and  of 
His  own  Sonship.  Both  of  these  determine  the 
conception  of  the  new  realm  or  reign  of  God  which 
He  came  to  inaugurate,  and  it  is  to  the  study  of  their 
meaning  that  we  must  now  pass. 

»  Itie  Eschatology  of  the  Gosjids  (1910),  p.  160 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  85 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GOD   OF  JESUS 

Philo,  the  Alexandrian  contemporary  of  Jesus, 
closes  his  treatise,  De  Opificio  Mu7idi,  with  a  summary 
of  the  five  supremely  important  lessons  which  are 
taught  by  Moses  in  the  Genesis-story  of  the  creation, 
(i)  To  refute  atheists,  he  teaches  that  God  really 
exists  ;  (ii)  to  refute  polytheists,  he  shows  that 
God  is  one  ;  (iii)  in  opposition  to  those  who  hold 
that  the  universe  is  eternal  and  self-existing,  he 
emphasises  its  creation  by  God,  (iv)  and  also  its 
unity,  as  the  work  of  the  God  who  is  Himself 
one,  in  opposition  to  speculations  about  a  plurality 
of  worlds  ;  (v)  finally,  we  learn  the  truth  of  provi- 
dence, '  for  it  must  needs  be  that  the  Maker  should 
duly  care  for  what  He  has  made,  just  as  parents 
take  thought  for  their  children.'  Jesus  never  called 
God  the  creator.  He  believed  the  Genesis-tradi- 
tion, as  is  evident  from  His  references  to  sex  and 
the  sabbath,  but  He  generally  states  in  other  forms 
the  moral  and  rehgious  significance  which  attaches 
to  the  doctrine  of  creation.  God  is  the  Father,  for 
Jesus,  but  not  because  He  is  creator.  The  truth  of 
the  divine  providence  is  connected  specifically  with 
the  Fatherly  interest  of  God.  Jesus  assumes  the 
JeAvish  behef  in  the  existence  and  the  unity  of  God ; 
He  did  not  require  to  teach  men  that  God  forgave 
sins,  and  His  teaching  contains  no  theories  about 


86  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

creation  ;  He  never  had  to  argue  with  people  who 
denied  the  power  or  righteousness  of  God.^  The 
stress  of  His  teaching  falls  on  the  practical  issues  of 
behef  in  God  as  the  Father  of  men. 

(a)  The  first  of  these  is  that  the  Father  cares  for 
their  interests.  Thus,  in  the  very  act  of  insist- 
ing that  His  disciples  must  subordinate  every  other 
consideration  to  the  interests  of  the  divine  kingdom, 
Jesus  assures  them  that  God  the  Father  is  not  in- 
different to  such  matters  as  their  food  and  clothing. 
Your  Father  knows  that  you  need  these  ;  only  seek 
Ms  kingdom  and  they  shall  he  added  to  you.^  The 
verv  dangers  and  deaths  which  may  be  encountered 
in  the  Christian  mission  He  within  His  fatherly 
providence : — 

Are  not  two  sparrows  sold  for  a  farthing  ? 

Yet  not  one  of  them  drops  to  the  ground  without  your 

Father. 
Fear  not,  then  :    you  are  of  far  more  value  than 

sparrows.^ 

This  is  a  behef  which  dominates  the  central  concep- 
tion of  God's  relation  to  men,  in  the  theology  of  the 
gospels.  But  it  neither  absolves  men  from  legitimate 
activity  in  the  matter  of  providing  for  themselves, 
nor  from  prudence  in  safeguarding  Hfe  against 
normal  dangers.  By  His  actions  as  well  as  by  His 
teaching,  Jesus  shows  that  this  unswerving  trust 
in  Grod  as  the  Father  imphes  a  use  of   ordinary 

1  The  omniscience  of  Grod  is  assumed,  bnt  in  the  religions  sense  of 
Matt.  vi.  4,  6, 18  (cf.  ver.  32),  not  as  a  dogma. 

8  Luke  xii.  31. 

»  So  Wellhausen  on  Matt.  x.  81,  arguing  that  iroWCbv  is  a  mistrans- 
lation of  the  Aramaic  original  as  above  rendered. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  87 

means  to  secure  one's  livelihood.,  and  a  recourse  to 
reasonable  precautions  in  order  to  ensure  one's 
personal  safety.  It  does  not  justify  carelessness  or 
presumption.  TLe  doctrine  of  the  divine  provi- 
dence, which  is  impHcit  and  explicit  in  the  gospels, 
is  not  a  premium  put  on  the  recklessness  even  of 
good  men.  A  concrete  example  of  this  is  afforded 
by  the  refusal  of  Jesus  to  be  deterred  from  His 
mission  by  the  reported  threat  of  Herod  to  murder 
Him  (Luke  xiii.  31  f.).  He  rephed,  Go  and  tell  that 
fox,  Behold  I  cast  out  demojis  and  perform  cures  to-day 
and  to-morrow,  .  .  .  to-day  and  to-morrow  and  the 
next  day  I  must  go  on.  The  third  day  I  shall  he 
perfected.  The  providence  of  God  is  over  Him 
until,  His  mission  is  accomphshed.  But  it  is  not 
accomphshed  without  suffering.  With  a  touch  of 
deep  irony,  He  adds  :  For  it  is  impossible  that  any 
prophet  should  perish  except  in  Jerusalem.  The  Holy 
City  must  retain  its  monopoly  of  killing  the  messengers 
of  God !  Nevertheless,  even  this  fate  is  part  of 
God's  providence,  since  without  it  the  divine  work 
of  Jesus  could  not  be  accomphshed.  He  beheves 
in  this  providence  and  has  courage  to  face  risks 
in  carrying  out  God's  purpose,  but  at  the  same  time, 
as  His  withdrawal  from  Galilee  and  His  precautions 
before  the  Last  Supper  show,  this  is  perfectly  con- 
sonant with  a  careful  avoidance  of  needless  dangers. 
When  they  persecute  you  in  one  city.  He  told  His  dis- 
ciples similarly,  flee  to  another.'^     But  the  clearest 

1  Matt.  X.  23.  This  text  was  abused  in  the  later  church  by  weak- 
kneed  Christians  who,  in  times  of  persecution,  as  Tertullian  caus- 
tically remarked  (dt  Corona,  i.),  thought  there  was  no  word  equal  to 
it  in  the  gospel.  The  best  comment  on  the  Terse  is  Acts  xvii. 
10,14. 


88  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

statement  of  the  principle  involved  is  presented 
by  the  temptation-narrative  in  Matt.  iv.  5-6,  where 
Jesus  refuses  to  presume  upon  the  providence  of 
God  by  thrusting  Himself  into  dangerous  positions, 
and  expecting  God  to  intervene  on  His  behalf.  The 
point  is  that  in  order  to  believe  in  God's  provi- 
dential care,  it  is  not  necessary  to  claim  arbitrary 
proofs  of  it.  The  first  temptation  is  to  abuse  the 
feeling  of  independence  which  comes  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  divine  sonship,  by  claiming  exemption 
from  the  ordinary  duty  of  relying  upon  God's  good- 
ness in  the  sphere  of  natural  wants  ;  the  second  is, 
to  abuse  the  feeling  of  dependence  by  an  arbitrary 
test  of  God's  willingness  to  intervene  miraculously 
on  behalf  of  those  who  are  in  peril.  Jesus  believed 
God's  angels  had  charge  of  the  faithful.  But  He 
declined  to  presume  on  this  behef  in  providence  ; 
He  felt  that  the  more  genuine  it  was,  the  less  it  would 
look  for  such  exceptional  proofs  of  the  divine  interest. 
The  same  thought  recurs  in  Matt.  xxvi.  53,  and 
again  in  connection  with  the  function  of  angels  in 
providence.  The  popular  belief  in  angels,  which 
Jesus  shared,  is  most  prominent  in  the  birth-stories 
of  Matthew  and  Luke.  Mark  has  comparatively 
few  allusions  to  them,  and  there  is  little  special 
development  of  the  belief  in  the  other  gospels ; 
while  Matthew's^  special  parables,  like  Luke's  (xv. 
10,  xvi.  22),  mention  angels  (xiii.  39,  xxv.  41),  and 
while  an  angel  appears  in  connection  with  the  resur- 
rection (xxviii.  2,  5)  ,2  Luke  twice  in  one  passage 
(xii.  6-9)  substitutes  the  angels  of  God  for  the  original 

1  The  saying  in  xviii.  10  is  the  only  other  allusion  peculiar  to  this 
gospel.     It  is  a  reference  to  guardian  angels. 

2  Cf.  John  XX.  12  for  a  different  tradition. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  89 

My  Father  in  heaven  (Matt.  x.  29-33).  The  reticence 
of  the  Fourth  gospel  upon  angels  is  connected  with 
its  omission  of  any  reference  to  demons.  So  far  as 
the  synoptic  tradition  is  concerned,  the  function  of 
angels  in  the  life  of  Jesus  is  confined  to  their  support 
in  crises  (Mark  i.  13,  Luke  xxii.  43)  ;  they  are  to  be 
His  agents  and  retinue  in  the  final  estabhshment  of 
the  khigdom,  but  they  play  a  noticeably  small  role 
in  mediating  between  men  and  God,  compared 
with  their  corresponding  functions  in  Judaism.  The 
direct  and  deep  faith  of  Jesus  hi  God  as  the  Father 
tended  to  confine  the  operations  of  providence  and 
the  mediation  of  revelation  to  His  immediate  con- 
tact with  men.^ 

(6)  A  further  outcome  of  this  fundamental  behef 
m  God's  fatherly  providence  is  the  conviction  that 
He  is  able  to  see  His  purpose  through,  and  to  ensure 
the  success  of  His  cause  m  the  world.  The  relation 
of  the  Father  to  the  order  of  the  universe  imphes 
that  this  spiritual  aim  will  be  effected,  and  tliis 
purpose  of  the  kingdom  is  brought  out  in  three  ways, 
(i)  '  Faith,'  says  Mazzmi,  '  requires  a  purpose  that 
shall  embrace  life  as  a  whole,  that  shall  concentrate 
all  its  manifestations,  and  either  direct  its  various 
energies  or  subordinate  them  to  the  control  of  a 
single  activity  ;  it  requires  an  earnest,  unshaken 
behef  that  the  purpose  will  be  attained,  a  profound 
conviction  of  a  mission  and  the  obligation  to  fulfil 
that  mission,  and  the  consciousness  of  a  supreme 
power  that  watches  over  the  believer's  progress  to  the 
goal.    These  elements  are  indispensable.    Where  any 


1 


It  is  by  angels  that  God's  will  is  done  in  heaven  (Matt.  vi.  10),  and 
the  condition  of  Christians  at  the  resurrection  is  to  be  angelic  (Mark  xii. 
25),  i.e.  according  to  Luke  (xx.  36),  immortal  as  well  as  rnmarried. 


90  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

one  of  them  is  lacking,  we  may  have  a  sect,  a  school, 
a  political  party,  but  not  a  faith,  not  an  hourly  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  a  great  rehgious  ideal.'  The 
words  which  I  have  italicised  point  to  a  religious 
conviction  which  finds  expression  in  the  Fatherhood 
of  God  as  represented  by  the  teaching  of  Jesus. 
There  is  no  doctrine  of  God's  omnipotence,^  in  the 
sense  of  later  dogma,  but  there  is  an  equivalent  for 
it  which  meets  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  faith. 
This  is  expressed  in  the  saying,  I  praise  thee,  Father, 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  while  thou  hast  concealed 
this  from  the  wise  and  shrewd,  thou  hast  revealed  it  to 
the  children.^  Here  the  words  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth  are  not  an  otiose  or  formal  epithet ;  they  are 
intended  to  suggest  that  the  fatherly  purpose  of 
God  in  Jesus  Christ  has  the  full  power  and  force 
of  the  universe  behind  it ;  it  is  effective  in  the 
natural  order.  This  invocation  of  Jesus  guarantees 
that  the  God  on  whom  Christians  rely  for  their 
personal  faith  is  adequate  to  carry  out  the  divine 
purpose  to  which  they  are  committed  by  their  self- 
surrender.  The  God  of  Jesus  has  control  of  the 
natural  powers  by  which  Christians  are  surrounded 
and  apparently  thwarted  here  and  there.  The 
Father  is  '  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,'  and  as  such 
He  is  competent  to  have  His  will  done  on  earth  as 
in  heaven.  According  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  our 
faith  in  God  the  Father  justifies  us  in  believing  that 
in  the  mysterious  world  of  Nature  an  absolute  value 

1  Note  the  context  of  the  saying,  With  Ood  all  things  are  possible 
(Matt.  xix.  26).  The  will  or  plan  of  God  can  be  thwarted  (Luke  vii, 
29-30) ;  there  is  no  determinism  about  it.  Sow  often  I  would  ,  •  • 
and  you  would  not  I 

s  Matt.  xi.  25. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  91 

attaches  to  our  personalities,  as  they  are  directed 
to  the  ends  of  God.  The  theology  of  the  gospels, 
in  this  respect  true  to  the  teaching  of  our  Lord, 
is  interested  in  creation  mainly  from  such  a  prac- 
tical point  of  view.  There  is  no  attempt  to  explain 
the  duaUsm  of  God  and  evil.  The  final  triumph 
of  God  is  assumed,  as  the  religious  basis  of  the 
eschatological  hope. 

(ii)  This  hope  of  the  good  time  coming,  when  the 
power  of  the  Father  will  come  fully  into  play,  was 
vital  to  the  faith  of  Jesus.  He  whose  will  is  done 
in  heaven  by  the  angels  is  willing  and  able  to  have 
it  done  also  upon  earth,  and  this  effective  climax 
is  the  outcome  of  His  redeeming  providence  in  the 
present.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  the  aim  of  Jesus 
to  create  and  foster  in  His  disciples  the  character 
which  corresponded  to  the  future  realm  and  reign 
of  God  the  Father  ;  purity  of  heart,  brotherly  love, 
a  forgiving  spirit,  and  genuine  humility,  He  taught, 
were  the  qualities  which  gave  men  a  title  to  the  bliss 
of  the  reign  to  come.  Again,  one  of  the  motives 
for  courage  and  hope,  under  the  stress  of  the  present 
evil  order,  was  the  conviction  that  it  was  temporary  ; 
the  Father  would  ere  long  vindicate  His  loyal  sons. 
Similarly,  the  renunciation  of  the  world  for  the  sake 
of  a  higher  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  Reign, 
was  represented  as  sure  of  a  reward  in  the  shape 
of  fuller  life.  The  underlying  thought  is  that  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  means  a  royal  authority.  To  be 
His  sons  is  to  be  sons  (Matt.  viii.  12,  etc.)  of  the 
kingdom,  i.e.  members  of  the  heavenly  order  which 
it  is  His  will  to  reaUse.  There  is  no  opposition 
between  the  fatherly  kindness  of  God  and  the 
divine   kingship   in  the  gospels ;    the   latter  is  an 


92  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

aspect  of  the  former.  Belief  in  God  the  Father 
involved  confidence  in  His  supreme  power  over  the 
universe,  and  this  found  expression  in  the  concep- 
tion of  His  reign. ^  He  who  was  Lord  of  heaven, 
where  His  will  was  done  by  the  spiritual  beings  of 
the  upper  order,  would  prove  Lord  of  earth  as  well, 
through  the  fulfilment  of  His  royal  purpose  of  love 
for  men  through  Christ. 

(iii)  Another  line  of  suggestion  is  afforded  by  the 
place  assigned  to  miracles  in  connection  with  the 
personahty  of  Jesus.  The  real  aim  of  His  healing- 
miracles  was  to  induce  the  reverent  recognition  of 
God's  power  as  manifested  in  Himself  ;  thus  the 
Samaritan  leper,  when  he  saw  he  was  cured,  returned 
glorifying  God  .  .  .  and  giving  him  {i.e.  Jesus) 
thanks  (Luke  xvii.  15-16).  These  works  of  healing 
represent  the  pity  and  power  of  God  exercised 
upon  men ;  they  are  cures  which  are  meant  to 
deepen  faith  in  the  merciful  and  strong  character 
of  the  Father,  whose  kingdom  Jesus  has  come  to 
establish.  Furthermore,  the  miracles  which  are 
conditioned  by  faith  in  the  recipient  of  the  divine 
benefits  ^  witness  to  the  truth  that  the  reign  of  God 
concerns  the  physical  as  well  as  the  spiritual  well- 
being  of  men,  and  that  the  goodwill  of  the  Father 


1  Cf.  Titius,  Der  Paulinismus,  pp.  32  f.  ('  Orientals  do  not  recog- 
nise our  sharp  distinction  between  the  family  and  the  state-organisa- 
tion. .  .  .  The  distinction  between  family  and  kingdom  must  be 
entirely  ignored  in  connection  with  the  mind  and  preaching  of 
Jesus '). 

2  That  is,  according  to  the  usual  synoptic  tradition.  In  the  Fourth 
gospel  the  (rrffxeXa  elicit  faith  rather  .than  presuppose  it;  they  are 
what  an  ancient  writer  would  have  called  aperal  deoO,  demonstrating 
the  divine  'glory'  of  Christ  for  the  sake  of  producing  faith  in 
Himself. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  93 

embraces  all  sides  of  human  nature  (cf.  Matt.  xi.  4  f.), 
with  the  power  of  reaching  and  healing  it  at  every 
point.  The  distinction  between  these  healing  miracles 
and  the  Nature-miracles  is  unreal,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  gospels.  The  diseases  and  disorders 
which  Jesus  cured,  as  part  of  His  work  for  the 
Father's  kingdom,  belonged  to  the  sphere  of  Nature 
over  which  God  ruled  for  the  benefit  of  His  people. 
The  apologetic  value,  therefore,  of  the  so-called 
Nature-miracles  was  the  demonstration  that  the 
God  who  produced  spiritual  miracles  upon  the  souls 
of  men  had  at  His  command  the  powers  of  the 
universe. 

The  relation  of  God's  providence  to  the  natural 
order  is  illustrated  not  only  by  the  '  miracles,'  how- 
ever, but  by  the  direct  teaching  of  our  Lord.  It  is 
significant  that  the  God  of  Jesus  is  vividly  present 
in  the  simple  processes  of  Nature.  To  the  theology 
of  the  gospels,  as  distinguished  from  the  lurid  con- 
ception of  the  main  apocalypses  and  from  the 
average  rabbinic  doctrine,  Nature  is  instinct  with 
the  divine  Spirit.  The  world  of  what  modems  call 
inanimate  Nature  is  not  profane  to  Jesus,  and  this 
is  a  dominant  note  in  His  teaching  upon  the 
character  of  God. 

Observe   how   the  flowers   of  the  field   grow!    They 
neither  toil  nor  spin  ; 
Yet,  I  tell  you,  even  Solomon  in  all  his  grandeur 
was  not  robed  like  one  of  these. 
And  if  God  so  clothes  the  grass  of  the  field  which  to-day 
is  and  to-morrow  is  thrown  into  the  oven, 
0  men  of  little  faith,  shall  he  not  much  more  clothe 
you  ?  1 

1  Matt.  vi.  28  f. 


94  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

This  recalls  the  older  appeal  of  the  psalmists  to 
Nature  as  a  proof  of  the  divine  goodness,  but  it 
stands  out  from  contemporary  Judaism  in  its  dis- 
tinctive appreciation  of  the  reUgious  as  well  as  the 
aesthetic  side  of  the  world.  '  Almost  all  Christ's 
moral  precepts  might  be  paralleled  or  illustrated 
by  something  in  Hebrew  or  Jewish  Hterature.  This 
praise  of  the  beauty  of  flowers  cannot,  apparently, 
be  so  paralleled.  And  it  helps  Christians  to  approxi- 
mate to  a  realisation  of  the  spiritual  attitude  of 
Christ's  conception  of  beauty  and  glory  in  the  moral 
world.  Of  all  Christ's  sayings  it  is  the  most  original.'  ^ 
Another  passage  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  points 
to  the  same  behef  in  the  Hving  God  of  Nature  : — 

Swear  not  by  heaven, 

For  it  is  God's  throne  : 
Neither  by  the  earth. 

For  it  is  the  footstool  of  his  feet.^ 

This  prohibition  of  careless  swearing  is  character- 
istic of  the  best  Jewish  piety,  and  the  phrasing  of 
the  saying  itself  suggests  a  verbal  reminiscence  of 
the  post-exihc  oracle  in  Isaiah  Ixvi.  1-2  : 

Thus  saith  Yahveh  :  Heaven  is  my  throne, 

And  the  earth  is  my  footstool. 
What  house  then  would  you  build  for  me. 

And  what  place  of  habitation  ? 

Only,  we  notice  that  Jesus  does  not  use  these 
words  in  order  to  prove  that  God  does  not  dwell 
in  houses  made  by  hands.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  He 
assumes  God's  presence  in  the  temple — His  Father's 
house  (cf.  Luke  ii.  49) — on  a  later  occasion  when  He 

1  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott,  The  Son  of  Man,  p.  xiv.  and  3565  d. 
8  Matt.  V.  34-35. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  »6 

again  refers  to  the  contemporary  abuse  of  oaths 
(Matt,  xxiii.  22)  : 

Does  not  a  man  who  swears  by  the  temple  swear  also 

by  him  who  inhabits  it  ? 
And  does  not  he  wlw  swears  by  heaven  swear  by  God's 

throne  and  by  him  who  is  seated  on  it  ? 

The  saying  is  another  gUmpse  of  the  directness 
and  inwardness  with  which  He  viewed  the  earth  as 
God's  earth,  for  all  its  evil  and  pain.  Nothing  is 
more  remote  from  the  teaching  of  the  gospels'  than 
a  deistic  view  of  the  world.^  Even  the  lurid  tinge 
wliich  apocalyptic  eschatology  imparted  to  some  of 
the  later  predictions  does  not  remove  the .  deeper 
aspect  of  the  hving  Father  as  present  in  the  world 
of  men  and  things,  to  bless  the  former  and  in  their 
interests  to  control  the  latter.  It  is  much  the  same 
intuitive  feehng  which  Browning  voices  through 
his  Luria  : — 

*  My  own  East ! 
How  nearer  God  we  were  !     He  glows  above 
With  scarce  an  intervention,  presses  close 
And  palpitatingly,  his  soul  o'er  ours  : 
We  feel  him,  nor  by  painful  reason  know  I 
All  changes  at  his  instantaneous  will, 
Not  by  the  operation  of  a  law 
Whose  maker  is  elsewhere  at  other  work. 
His  hand  is  still  engaged  upon  his  world — 
Man's  praise  can  forward  it,  man's  prayer  suspend, 
For  is  not  God  all-mighty  1     To  recast 
The  world,  erase  old  things  and  make  them  new, 
What  costs  it  him  ?     So,  man  breathes  nobly  there.' 

1  Cf.  e.g.  John  v.  17.  The  difficulty  of  reconciling  the  problem  of 
God  with  Nature,  and  of  explaining  the  relation  between  an  absolute, 
spiritual  being  and  the  material  creation,  which  vexed  the  soul  of  the 
later  gnostics,  is  not  directly  present  to  the  theology  of  the  gospels. 


96  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

'  BGis  hand  is  still  engaged  upon  His  world.'  The 
gospels  present  the  life  of  God  in  the  natural  world 
as  active  on  behalf  of  His  moral  and  spiritual  interests 
in  human  life.  His  control  of  Nature  permits  the 
full  growth  of  the  human  soul  into  His  own  hkeness, 
and  the  full  accomplishment  of  His  redeeming 
purpose  in  this  universe  of  pain  and  suffering  and 
sin. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  theology  of  the  gospels 
anticipates  a  modem  problem  of  the  rehgious  con- 
sciousness, the  difficulty  of  believing  in  a  transcen- 
dental Grod  who  is  great  and  high,  and  at  the  same 
time  of  trusting  in  a  God  who  is  present  in  the  most 
intimate  hfe  of  the  soul.  According  to  the  gospels, 
the  immanence  of  God  is  not  confined  to  Nature  as 
opposed  to  human  nature,  nor  to  human  nature  as 
distinguished  from  the  sphere  of  natural  forces  and 
elements.  The  Father  is  King  and  Lord  of  the 
universe,  not  in  an  external  sense,  but  as  creating 
and  sustaining  it  for  His  own  ends,  and  this  imples 
that  He  wills  to  come  into  direct  relation  with  those 
in  whom  these  ends  are  to  be  fulfilled.  Jesus  teaches 
that  the  reign  or  realm  of  God  the  Father  is  the 
reahsation  of  His  will  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven. 
Thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  he  done.  The  spirit  of 
this  prayer  means  that  the  Christian  identifies  his 
will  with  the  will  of  God,  as  directed  to  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  divine  realm  in  this  world,  the  realm 
being  the  hfe  and  activity  of  God's  household.  It 
is  the  same  thought  which  underlies  Christ's  teach- 
ing, that  when  hfe  is  surrendered  for  the  sake  of 
Himself  and  the  gospel  it  is  truly  won  ;  men  take 
up  their  life  again,  under  this  devotion  to  the  great 
cause  of  God,  and  find  that  it  is  really  life  in  the 


m.]  THU;  GOD  0£  JESUS  97 

deepest  sense  of  the  word.  In  other  words,  the 
renunciation  of  the  lower  self,  with  its  narrow  and 
particular  ends,  in  favour  of  the  will  of  God,  brings 
a  man  into  the  closest  experience  of  the  living  God, 
and  at  the  same  time  reveals  a  divine  purpose 
which  transcends  the  finite  sphere  of  human  activities. 
From  one  point  of  view,  as  the  Fourth  gospel  puts  it 
(xiv.  23),  such  a  man  hves  the  life  of  God  ;  if  a  man 
love  me — which,  as  the  context  shows  (cf.  ver.  21), 
imphes  obedience  to  the  commands  of  Christ — he 
vnll  keep  my  word,  and  my  Father  will  love  him, 
and  we  will  come  to  him  and  mxike  our  abode  with 
him.  This  is  not  equivalent  to  any  mystic  absorp- 
tion of  the  human  personality  in  the  divine.  It  is 
not  upon  the  mere  imity  of  God  and  man  that  com- 
munion with  God  depends.  Such  a  view  invariably 
tends  to  reduce  communion  to  an  abstract  or  imper- 
sonal relationship  between  either  finite  beings  and 
some  absolute  essence  of  which  they  are  so  many 
differentiations,  or  between  the  dewdrop  and  the 
shiniQg  sea  of  deity  into  which  it  shps.  The  gospels 
represent  communion  mth  God  in  terms  of  sonship, 
which  involves  kinship  and  dependence.  This  con- 
ception practically  carries  with  it  the  elements 
which  a  modem  doctrine  of  Immanence  is  designed  to 
conserve — the  essential  affinity  of  man  to  God,  the 
sacredness  and  worth  of  the  present  hfe,  and  the  near- 
ness of  God  to  man  in  moral  and  spiritual  experience. 
Thus  the  theology  of  the  gospels  is  saved  from 
the  danger  into  which  later  theologies  of  the  mystic 
type  have  more  than  once  shpped — the  danger  of 
allowing  the  consciousness  and  contemplation  of 
God  to  distract  life  from  moral  devotion  to  the 
interests  of   the   divine   service  and   kiugdom.     It 

G 


98  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

is  based  on  faith  in  the  risen  Christ,  and  therefore 
this  communion  of  God  and  man  is  regarded  as 
mediated  through  the  Son.  Now,  the  condition 
of  the  presence  of  Christ  is  invariably  obedience 
to  His  will  as  a  will  of  service  and  fealty.  Go  .  .  , 
and  lo  !  I  am  with  you  always.^  One  of  the  later 
rabbis  is  reported  to  have  said,  as  a  deduction 
from  Malachi  iii.  16,  that  '  two  who  sit  together 
and  are  occupied  with  the  words  of  Torah  have  the 
Shekinah  among  them'  {Pirqe  Ahoth,  iii.  3).  Jesus, 
according  to  Matthew  (xviii.  20),  promises  His 
divine  presence  to  any  two  or  three  of  His  disciples 
who  have  met  in  his  name.  This  is  an  anticipa- 
tion of  the  Fourth  gospel's  doctrine  of  the  indwelling 
of  Christ,  and  elsewhere  in  that  gospel  {e.g.  i.  14) 
there  are  traces  of  the  Hebrew  conception  of  the 
Shekinah  or  '  Presence  of  the  Glory '  having  been 
fused  with  the  Logos-idea  of  the  evangelist,  a  fusion 
which  was  all  the  more  natural  as  the  Shekinah 
and  the  Memra,  or  Word,  were  sometimes  almost 
indistinguishable.  But  the  point  of  the  Matthean 
saying  ^  is,  that  the  divine  presence  of  Jesus  not 
only  corresponds  to  the  older  conception  of  God's 
nearness    to    the   faithful,    but   is    conditioned    by 

1  Matt,  xxviii.  19. 

2  There  is  nothing  in  the  gospels  which  exactly  corresponds  to  the 
mystical  expansion  of  this  saying  in  the  famous  Oxyrhynchite  logion, 
which  (in  Blass's  restoration)  runs :  Wheresoever  two  are,  they 
are  not  godless,  and  where  there  is  one  only,  I  say,  I  am  with  him. 
liaise  the  stone,  and  there  thou  shalt  find  me;  cleave  the  tree,  and  I 
am  there.  The  divine  presence  with  the  individual  saint  is  argued  as 
in  Pirqe  Ahoth,  iii.  9  ;  but  the  rest  of  the  saying  is  pantheistic,  as  the 
gospels  are  not.  Compare  the  description  of  the  Christian  soutar  in 
George  Macdonald's  novel,  Salted  with  Fire  (p.  183),  as  '  turning  up 
ilka  muckle  stane  to  luik  for  his  Maister  aneth  it.*  The  thought, 
quid  interius  Deo  t  is  otherwise  put  by  Jesus. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  99 

devotion  to  His  person  and  cause  (cf.  the  context). 
The  theology  of  the  gospels  might  be  described 
as  the  grammar  and  syntax  of  that  personal  religion 
whose  spirit  prompts  the  cry,  Father,  Father.  The 
revelation  of  God  which  gave  rise  to  this  faith  was 
the  effect  of  the  teaching  and  personality  of  Jesus. 
The  distinctive  factor  in  Christianity  is  not  that 
He  taught  God  was  the  Father  of  men,  but  that 
God  was  His  Father  ;  it  was  in  virtue  of  this  unique 
consciousness  of  sonship  that  He  called  men  to 
come  to  Him  and  learn  the  secret  of  sonship,  and  He 
mediated  the  knowledge  of  it  by  His  hfe  and  death 
and  resurrection,  no  less  than  by  His  words.  The 
teaching  of  Jesus  on  this  point  or  on  any  other  cannot 
be  severed  from  His  personahty  and  vocation.  He 
was  the  Son  of  God  in  order  to  bring  men  into  son- 
ship,  by  enabhng  them  to  lay  hold  of  the  redeeming 
love  of  the  Father,  and  this  required  more  than  words. 
At  first,  however,  it  is  principally  the  conception 
of  God  in  His  teaching  which  is  before  us.  Now,  a 
religion  may  call  God  by  several  names,  but  there 
are  titles  for  God  without  which  it  would  not  be 
itself,  and  for  Christianity  the  supreme  title  is  that 
of  '  Father.'  Its  distinctive  meaning  as  the  charac- 
teristic description  of  God  in  the  gospels  is  further 
brought  out  by  a  comparison  of  the  current  Jewish 
titles  which  Jesus  either  ignored  or  used  sparingly. 
Among  the  chief  of  these  were  The  Lord  (6  Kv/)tos), 
The  Blessed  {o  cvAoyv^Tos),!  The  Most  High  (o  ui^torTos),^ 

1  In  Mark  xiv.  61  (the  high  priest's  challenge),  Are  you  the  messiah, 
the  son  of  the  Blessed  t 

2  In  Mark  v.  7,  an  adjuration  of  the  demoniac.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  Lucan  use  is  a  personal  predilection  of  the  evangelist,  or 
reflects  an  occasional  habit  of  Jesus. 


100  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

or,  under  the  influence  of  an  ultra-reverential  feeling, 
simply  The  Name  ^  or  Heaven  (cf .  Mark  xi.  30, 
Luke  XV.  18,  21,  John  iii.  27,  for  incidental  traces  of 
this  usage).  Once,^  in  the  threatening  prediction 
made  to  the  Jewish  authorities,  he  calls  God  by  the 
Jewish  allusive  title  of  The  Power  (Mark  xiv.  62= 
Matt.  xxvi.  64), 3  possibly  because  '  He  desires  to 
warn  the  Jews  that  in  condemning  "  the  Son  of  man  " 
on  earth,  they  are  turning  God  into  a  "  Power," 
instead  of  a  Father,  in  heaven,  and  are  preparing 
for  themselves,  in  the  Son,  not  a  mediator  revealing 
the  Father,  but  a  judge  seated  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  Power '  (Abbott,  The  Son  of  Man,  3309).  Li  any 
case,  He  does  not  speak  of  God  as  the  Almighty. 
The  Father's  divine  power,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  presented  in  other  language  with  special 
reference  to  the  interests  of  Christians  and  the 
kingdom. 

A  similar  attitude  characterises  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  with  regard  to  the  '  holiness '  of  Grod.  The 
Lord's  Prayer  begins,  Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven, 
hallowed  he  thy  name.  As  the  name  or  rather  the 
character  of  God  is  Father,  the  prayer  is  for  the 
deeper  and  wider  knowledge  not  of  His  transcend- 

1  Cf.  e.g.  the  high  priest's  confession  in  Joma,  iii.  8,  *0  Name,  I 
have  sinned  before  Thee,  I  and  my  house ;  0  Name,  do  Thou  make 
atonement,'  etc. 

2  The  gospel  of  Peter  preserves  the  cry  of  Jesus  on  the  cross  as  My 
Power,  my  Power,  thou  hast  left  me,  but  this  is  not  necessarily  a 
divine  title ;  it  may  denote  the  higher  spiritual  power  of  His  own 
personality. 

3  Luke  writes  the  power  of  God  (xxii.  69),  either  because  he  wished 
to  avoid  this  unfamiliar  synonym  for  God,  or  because  he  took  the 
earlier  phrase  (as  it  might  be  taken,  though  less  probably)  as  an 
equivalent  for  the  right  hand  of  power  {bwdfietas^KU  adjectival 
genitive). 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  101 

ence  but  of  His  fatherly  nature.  Reverence  for  God 
as  the  Father  is  what  Jesus  teaches  in  this  petition 
or  asp  ration.  The  sacred  name  for  Him  was  not  The 
Holy  One  but  Father ;  it  was  as  Father  that  God 
was  to  be  reverenced  and  honoured.  Jesus  deepens 
as  He  carries  on  the  conception  of  God  as  the  Father, 
the  Father  not  simply  of  the  community  but  of 
the  individual  also,  and  of  the  individual  man  not 
simply  of  the  individual  Israelite.  He  is  the  royal 
Father  of  men,  not  because  He  created  them,  nor 
because  He  rules  them,  but  because  they  stand  to 
Him  in  a  moral  relation  of  kinship  and  dependence. 
But  it  is  His  Spirit  which  is  described  as  holy,  not 
Himself.  The  association  of  remoteness  and  ritual 
which  had  gathered  round  the  divine  name  of  '  holy,' 
probably  accounted  for  Jesus'  avoidance  of  it ;  the 
moral  purity  and  passion  wliich  it  denoted,  were 
expressed  by  Him  in  terms  of  the  Father's  love  as 
opposed  to  sin  in  man.  It  was  His  profound  con- 
ception of  the  divine  love  wliich  embraced  what 
had  hitherto  been  grouped  mainly  under  the  special 
category  of  holiness  in  the  description  of  God's 
character.  As  the  Father,  God  inspired,  for  Jesus, 
the  moral  reverence  and  humility  which  His  holiness 
had  elicited  in  Judaism,  and  not  only  inspired  but 
deepened  them.  The  fact  that  Jesus  avoided  this 
term  accounts  for  its  comparative  rarity  in  the 
theology  of  the  primitive  Christians.  '  Holiness '  had 
associations  which  were  inconsistent  with  their 
religious  experience  of  God  as  the  Father,  and  its 
valid  elements  were  expressed  in  other  ways.  It  is 
not  unlikely,  too,  that  the  adjective  was  avoided 
as  a  divine  epithet  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  Greeks 
never    applied    it    to    their    deities.     The    convert 


102  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

instinctively  felt  that  heavenly  or  in  the  heavens  was 
more  appropriate  than  the  less  familiar  and  less 
obvious  holy  (aytos).^ 

There  is  only  one  passage  in  the  gospels  where 
'  holy '  is  definitely  applied  to  God,  i.e.  in  John 
xvii.  11.  Holy  Father,  keep  them  in  thy  name 
{i.e.  keep  them  faithful  to  thy  nature  and  revela- 
tion of  Father)  which  thou  hast  given  to  me,  that 
theirs  m^y  he  a  unity  like  ours.  The  last  words  are 
reiterated  throughout  the  prayer  (ver.  20  f.,  24  f .),  and 
denote  its  special  object.  Christ's  desire,  according 
to  the  wTiter,  is  that  His  people  may  be  kept  from 
the  divisive,  unbrotherly  spirit  of  the  world  ;  Keep 
them  from  the  evil  one,  who  rules  with  a  spirit  of  hat€ 
the  world  in  which  they  have  to  hve  and  work. 
Their  sphere  is  the  relationship  and  attitude  in  which 
they  call  God  Father,  as  revealed  in  Christ,  and 
thus  form  a  brotherhood  on  earth  .^  This  passage  is 
therefore  an  expansion  of  the  thought  in  the  synoptic 
Lord's  Prayer.  The  term  holy  is  chosen  in  opposi- 
tion to  that  of  the  world,  but  the  idea  is  not  dissimilar 
to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  viz.,  that  to  pray  for  the 
Father's  name  being  hallowed,  implies  absolute 
loyalty  to  His  will,  trust  in  His  love,  and — forgive 
us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our  debtors — a  temper  of 
unvarying  forgiveness  in  the  lives  of  those  who  thus 
call  Him  Father.  Ln  fact  the  term  holy,  in  John 
xvii.  11,  is  probably  an  equivalent  for  the  synoptic 
heavenly,  which  is  never  applied  to  God  by  the 
writer  of  the  Fourth  gospel.     Holy  Father  is  practi- 

1  Kattenbusch,  Das  Apostolische  Symbol,  ii.  687. 

*  This  is  the  real  life  (ver.  17,  corresponding  to  the  true  character 
of  their  God)  to  which  he  devotes  them,  setting  them  apart  for  Us 
propagation  in  this  world. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  103 

cally   another   mode   of    expression   for   Father   in 
heaven.'^ 

What  is  totally  absent  from  this  conception  of 
God  as  Father,  is  the  notion  that  any  ceremony  is 
required  upon  the  part  of  man  to  render  honour  and 
glory  to  Him,  or  to  thank  Him  publicly  and  formally 
for  His  goodness.  The  theology  of  the  gospels  does 
not  know  such  a  deity  ;  it  tacitly  supersedes  the  older 
ideas  of  a  God,  to  which  such  practices  were  relevant 
as  the  moral  elements  in  sacrifice.  The  God  of 
Jesus  is  to  be  worshipped,  according  to  the  Fourth 
gospel,  as  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth  (iv.  23)  ;  He 
is  honoured  and  served  in  a  Hfe  which,  inspired  by 
His  spirit,  is  faithful  and  loving  in  the  common  duties 
of  this  world.  The  externalities  of  ritual  and  cere- 
mony, with  their  local  circumstances,  belong  to  the 
sphere  of  the  flesh,  which  in  the  Johannine  usage  is 
the  material  and  lower  antithesis  to  the  divine  world 
of  the  spirit  as  the  only  reaUty.  The  basis  for  this 
conception  of  inward  worship  is  laid  down  by  Jesus 
in  the  anti-Pharisaic  passage  at  the  opening  of 
Matthew  vi.  where  the  genuine  ideal  of  righteousness 
is  defined,  in  the  sphere  of  ordinary  hfe  as  well  as 
of  worship.  Jesus  requires  a  passionate  devotion  to 
this  righteousness  (Matt.  v.  6,  10),  and  promises  that 
it  will  be  satisfied  in  the  realm  of  God.  He  connects 
it  with  the  realm  of  God,  not  simply  as  the  require- 
ment but  as  the  atmosphere  and  content  of  that 
realm  or  reign  (cf.  Mark  xii.  29-31).  The  righteous- 
ness and  the  kingdom  of  God  are  not  only  associated 
(Matt.  vi.  33,  seek  first  the  kingdom  and  his  righteous- 

1  This  term,  which  is  practically  confined  to  Matthew's  gospel,  is 
allied  to  that  of  the  kingdom  of  lieaven  (see  above,  p.  63).  For  argu- 
ments against  its  originality,  cf.  Abbott's  Son  of  Man,  3492. 


104  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

ness),^  but  by  being  brought  under  the  common 
and  supreme  category  of  life  are  practically  identified. 
What  Jesus  meant  by  the  term  which  we  translate 
righteousness,  was  the  conduct  and  character  which 
corresponded  to  the  fatherly  love  of  God  (cf.  Matt. 
V.  43  f.),  and  this  meant  a  share  in  His  own  life.^ 

The  outstanding  feature  of  this  righteousness, 
which  differentiates  it  from  any  formal  or  legal 
conception,  is  spontaneous,  ungrudging,  unreserved 
love. 

Love  your  enemies  and  pray  for  your  persecutors, 
Tliat  you  may  prove  sons  of  your  Father  in  heaven  : 

For  he  makes  his  sun  rise  on  the  evil  and  the  good. 
And  rains  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.^ 

Jesus  prohibits  any  restriction  of  love  and  pity 
to  those  who  are  kind  to  ourselves.  The  doctrine 
sounds  heroic  to  ordinary  human  nature,  but  Jesus 
does  not  present  it  as  heroic.  He  grounds  His 
demand  upon  the  natural  attitude  of  the  Father, 
upon  what  Francis  of  Assisi  called  '  the  great  courtesy 
of  God.'  He  assumes  that  men  enjoy  the  benefits 
of  rain  and  sunshine  from  the  hand  of  the  Father, 
and  argues  that  a  similar  generosity  must  stream 
out  from  their  hearts  upon  the  undeserving.     Love 

1  'Righteousness'  is  one  of  Matthew's  favourite  terms,  and  in  this 
passage  it  is  uncertain  whether  the  Lucan  omission  is  not  more 
correct.  If  it  is  retained,  it  denotes  not  the  character  of  God  but  the 
moral  and  spiritual  requirements  which  He  makes  upon  those  who 
are  sons  and  citizens  of  His  kingdom. 

2  The  remark  of  Wisdom  xii.  19  :  Thmi  hast  taught  thy  people  that 
the  righteo%is  should  he  a  lover  of  men  {(f>CKdvdpojTrov)  occurs  in  a 
nationalistic  passage,  but  it  is  based  on  the  conception  of  God's 
gracious  nature  (ver.  12). 

3  Matt.  V.  44  f. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  105 

is  the  absolute  character  of  God,  love  even  for  the 
undeserving.  The  Most  High  is  kind  to  the  thankless 
and  the  evil.  Be  pitiful,  even  as  your  Father  is 
pitiful.  This  is  the  Lucan  parallel  to  Matthew's 
word — You  are  to  he  perfect,  as  your  heavenly  Father 
is  perfect,  as  your  love  extends  even  to  your  enemies.^ 
The  moral  claim  is  that  the  sons  of  the  kingdom 
must  reproduce  in  their  own  lives  the  spirit  of  their 
royal  Father,  especially  towards  those  who  have 
wi'onged  them. 

This  conception  of  God's  nature  is  interwoven 
with  every  fibre  of  the  Christian  message.  It  is 
illustrated  by  the  identification  of  love  to  God  with 
sympathy  and  service,  by  Christ's  insistence  that 
forgiveness  and  charity  must  not  be  allowed  to 
stand  aside  on  any  pretext — not  even  on  the  pretext 
that  worship  has  prior  obhgations.  Go  and  learn, 
said  Jesus  once,  what  this  saying  means  :  I  desire 
mercy,  and  not  sacrifice.  He  said  this  to  clinch  His 
reasons  for  associating  with  the  tax-gatherers  and 
sinners  of  Gahlee,  a  proceeding  which  scandalised 
the  Pharisees ;  and  this  points  to  a  second  method 
by  which  the  character  of  God  was  interpreted  by 
Him.  His  welcome,  extended  to  classes  which  were 
treated  as  beyond  the  pale  by  the  religious  authorities, 
was  a  practical  demonstration  of  the  divine  purpose 
in  its  graciousness.  The  whole  attitude  of  Jesus 
to  sinners  has  a  theological  significance  which  talUes 
with  His  teaching  upon  God's  fatherly  and  gracious 

1  It  is  in  this  brotherly  love  that  the  moral  personality  develops 
into  the  life  of  God.  This  is  the  motive  of  the  higher  '  righteousness.' 
It  anticipates  a  reward,  not  in  the  sense  of  recompense  which  can 
be  claimed  for  merit  laid  up  by  almsgiving  and  the  like,  but  as  the 
consequence  and  fruition  of  the  inward  spirit  which  aspires  to  the 
character  of  the  Father. 


106  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

love  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Jesus  pro- 
claims by  act  as  well  as  word  the  holy  love  of  God 
seeking  out  the  sinful,  welcoming  the  lost  and 
harassed,  restoring  the  penitent  to  God's  favou  ■, 
and  assuring  men  of  their  place  in  the  Father's 
heart.  Now  this  message  has  presuppositions  and 
consequences  which  involve  more  than  appears  upon 
the  surface. 

(i)  The  first  is,  the  self-sacrifice  of  love  in  God  as 
well  as  in  man.  A  vivid  ray  of  light  is  thrown  upon 
the  character  of  God  by  the  terms  in  which  Jesus 
passionately  rebuked  Peter  for  seeking  to  dissuade 
Him  from  going  up  to  suSer  and  die  at  Jerusalem. 
And  he  began  to  teach  them  that  the  Son  of  man  must 
endure  great  suffering,  and  he  rejected  by  the  elders  and 
the  high  'priests  and  the  scribes,  and  be  killed,  and  after 
three  days  rise  again.  He  spoke  of  this  frankly  and 
explicitly.  Then  Peter  took  him,  and  began  to  rebuke 
him.  But  Jesus  turned  round  and,  seeing  his  dis- 
ciples, rebuked  Peter,  saying,  Begone,  thou  Satan,  for 
thy  thoughts  are  man's,  not  God's.^  The  intensity 
of  this  reproof  insists  that  suffering  is  in  the  fine 
of  God's  heart  and  mind.  Human  feeling  is  apt  to 
shrink  from  pain  and  death  ;  it  naturally  assumes 
that  these  must  be  incompatible  with  the  divine 
nature.  Even  Peter,  who  is  forward  to  hail  Jesus 
as  the  Christ  of  God,  is  shocked  at  the  idea  that 
his  Master  should  dream  of  exposing  Himself  to 
ignominy  and  distress  ;  his  conception  of  the  divine 
purpose  cannot  yet  admit  the  idea  of  a  messiah 
who  triumphs  through  suffering.  Jesus  reverses  his 
view,  as  untrue  to  the  mind  of  God  ;  ov  (f)poi'€i:s 
TO,   TOiJ   Oeov   dXXa   ra   t(ov   avOpuiiriov,     God's    way   is 

1  Mark  viii.  31  f. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  107 

not  tlie  line  of  shrinking  from  self-sacrifice.  To 
choose  the  path  leading  to  the  cross  is  to  mind  the 
things  of  God,  i.e.  to  act  upon  His  motives  and  to 
sympathise  practically  with  His  aim.  When  Jesus 
introduced  into  the  conception  of  the  apocalyptic 
Son  of  man  the  startling  function  of  suffering,  He 
was  implicitly  revolutionising  the  entire  scheme  of 
messianic  eschatology.  When  He  showed  that  He 
must  go  forward  on  this  line,  that  it  was  the  only 
divine  course  to  take,  the  only  course  open  to  any 
one  who  understood  the  real  purpose  and  method  of 
God,  He  was  giving  an  interpretation  of  the  divine 
Spirit  which  controlled  the  kingdom. 

If  there  was  not  for  His  contemporaries,  there  is  for 
us,  a  dramatic  significance  in  the  very  locality  of  this 
decision.^  Csesarea  Philippi  lay  outside  Judaea,  and  it 
was  associated  with  more  faiths  than  one.  In  the  high 
red  hmestone  cliff,  from  which  the  Jordan  bubbled, 
there  was  a  huge  cave  or  grotto,  sacred  to  the  worship 
of  Pan  and  the  nymphs — a  worship  consecrated  by 
the  Macedonian  Greeks,  who  had  settled  in  the 
district  after  Alexander  the  Great's  conquest.  Pan, 
the  god  of  green  fields  and  grazing  flocks,  represented 
the  joyful  worship  of  the  Greek  world  as  it  aban- 
doned itself  to  the  natural  instincts  of  life.  There 
was  another  local  cult,  however.  On  the  cHff 
above  the  grotto  a  white  temple  stood,  where  the 
Roman  emperor  was  worshipped.  This  temple  had 
been  erected  by  Herod  after  the  visit  of  Caesar 
Augustus  ;  it  denoted  a  form  or  phase  of  supersti- 
tion which  glorified  pomp  and  authority,  not  Nature. 
Now,   both   of   these   contemporary   religions   were 

1  Cf.   Dr.    G.   A.    Smith's    Historical    Oeography   of  Palestine 
pp.  474  f. 


108  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

the  antithesis  of  the  rehgion  which  Jesus  revealed 
to  the  disciples  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  when  He  began 
to  show  His  disciples  that  He  must  go  to  Jerusalem 
and  suffer  and  be  killed,  in  obedience  to  the  prompt- 
ing of  His  God. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  striking  proofs  of  what 
Jesus  beheved  His  God  to  be.  Anticipations  of  the 
divine  nature  as  impljdng  self-sacrifice  and  sympathy 
had  been  already  voiced  here  and  there  both  within 
Judaism  and  Hellenism,  by  the  fifty-third  chapter 
of  Isaiah,  e.g.,  by  sayings  like  In  all  their  affliction 
he  was  afflicted — which  the  finer  faith  of  the  rabbis 
dwelt  upon  with  emphasis,  and  also,  throughout 
the  higher  reaches  of  Greek  and  Oriental  thought, 
by  the  contemporary  belief  in  the  dying  and  suffer- 
ing god  of  the  cults.  These  are  glimpses  of  the 
light  that  was  coming  into  the  world  in  full  splendour 
through  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  how  difficult 
it  was  to  believe  that  the  higher  life  came  through 
dying  to  self,  and  that  it  is  divine  to  bear  suffering 
willingly  for  the  sake  of  others,  is  shown  by  Peter's 
blunt  remonstrance.  He  was  shocked  at  the  notion 
of  the  Son  of  God  actually  dreaming  of  anything  so 
humiliating  and  unworthy  as  pain  and  self-sacrifice. 
The  pageant  of  apocalyptic  eschatology  dazzled 
his  eyes  till  they  failed  as  yet  to  recognise  where  the 
true  glory  of  life  lay.  It  required  the  facts  of  the 
passion  and  the  cross  and  the  resurrection  to  convince 
the  disciples  that  Jesus  was  right  in  His  reading  of 
God's  character,  and  therefore  He  revealed  the 
nature  of  the  Father,  not  simply  by  telling  men  of 
His  intuitions,  but  by  acting  as  He  believed  in  the 
line  of  God  and  pointing  men,  through  what  He  did 
and  suffered,  to  the  essential  spirit  and  motives  of 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  109 

the  Father.  The  parables  enshrine  with  unrivalled 
clearness  the  fatherly  and  forgiving  goodness  of  God. 
But,  as  Jesus  showed  at  Caesarea  Philippi,  the  deeds 
of  our  Lord — His  entire  vocation,  His  attitude  to 
life  and  death — set  forth  even  with  greater  vividness 
the  real  interests  of  God.  He  who  has  seen  me  has 
seen  the  Father,  says  the  Christ  of  the  Fourth  gospel. 
That  sajdng  sums  up  the  meaning  of  Christ's  life 
as  a  practical  revelation  of  God's  character  and 
purpose ;  ^  it  renders  explicit  what  is  more  or 
less  implicit  in  the  synoptic  tradition,  the  divine, 
redeeming  love  which  led  up  to  the  cross. 

It  was  the  sin  of  man,  bound  up  with  the  evil  of 
the  world,  which  necessitated  this  utter  self-sacrifice. 
Jesus  had  to  overcome  more  than  wrong  views 
about  God  ;  He  had  to  meet  the  sin  of  the  world 
as  a  positive  opponent  of  the  Father.  To  Him  the 
forgiveness  of  sins  was  the  negative  side  of  bliss  or 
entrance  into  fellowship  with  God.  It  was  by  reveal- 
ing the  true  character  and  realising  the  gracious 
purpose  of  God,  that  He  sought  to  produce  a  genuine 
repentance,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  reassure  those 
who  had  a  sense  of  sin.  When,  therefore,  He 
demanded  repentance  because  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  at  hand,  the  conception  of  the  kingdom  deter- 
mined the  nature  of  the  repentance  which  was 
required  ;  the  motives  for  the  latter  were  found  in 
God's  fatherly  love,  with  its  corollary  of  brotherly 

1  *  A  son  may  reveal  a  father  in  two  ways :  either  by  being  like 
him — so  entirely  in  his  image  as  to  be  justified  in  saying,  He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  my  father — or  by  manifesting  a  constant 
reverential,  loving  trust,  and  thus  testifying  that  the  father  is  worthy 
of  such  a  trust.  Jesus  revealed  the  Father  in  both  these  ways' 
(Erskine,  The  Spiritual  Order,  p.  250).  The  former  is  mainly  charao 
teristic  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  the  latter  of  the  synoptistB. 


110  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

service,  and  both  of  these  are  represented  in  the  Hfe 
and  death  of  Jesus  ;  He  hves  and  dies  to  bring  them 
home  with  power  to  the  conscience  of  men,  amid 
the  sins  of  worldliness  and  hatred  which  exclude 
from  the  kingdom. 

(ii)  The  special  and  unique  work  which  Jesus  had 
thus  to  do,  in  connection  with  the  purpose  of  God, 
implied  a  corresponding  relation  between  Him  and 
the  Father.  This  topic  partly  belongs  to  the  next 
chapter,  but  it  is  cognate  to  our  present  discussion, 
since  the  character  of  God  as  the  Father  of  Jesus 
is  the  basis  of  the  general  Fatherhood  which  underlies 
the  synoptic  tradition  as  well  as  the  Johannine. 

The  chief  passage  which  voices  this  aspect  of  the 
synoptic  theology  is  Matt.  xi.  26-7  : 

All  has  been  given  over  to  me  by  my  Father  : 
And  no  one  knows  the  Son  except  the  Father — 
Nor  does  any  one  know  the  Father  except  the  Son, 
And  he  to  wJwm  the  Son  chooses  to  reveal  him. 

The  last  word  has  to  be  supplied.  The  original 
has  no  accusative  after  reveal,  and  the  object  of  the 
Son's  revelation  might  include  Himself  as  well  as 
the  Father.  It  is  possible  that  the  last  clause  thus 
refers  to  both  of  the  preceding,  as  Irenaeus  suggested 
{Adv.  Haer.  iv.  6.  3,  especially  his  comment  on  the 
phrase,  which  runs,  teaching  of  Himself  and  of  the 
Father).  In  any  case  Jesus  speaks  of  God  as  His 
Father,  and  of  Himself  as  the  Son,  in  a  specific 
sense.  The  saying  at  the  transfiguration  (Mark  ix.  7) 
and  some  other  allusions  corroborate  the  view  that 
this  was  not  an  isolated  usage,  which  may  be 
explained  away  in  Matt.  xi.  26-7  as  the  projection 
of  a  '  Johannine  '  idea  into  the  synoptic  tradition. 
It  is  the  expression  rather  than  the  thought  which 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  111 

is  exceptional  in  this  passage.  Jesus  is  here  as 
elsewhere  the  Son,  not  because  He  is  the  messiah, 
but  in  virtue  of  a  unique  relation  to  the  Father.  It 
is  through  His  consciousness  of  a  distinct  relation 
to  God  as  the  Father,  that  the  consciousness  of  the 
messianic  vocation  is  interpreted  by  the  evangelists. 
Jesus  is  presented  as  the  Son  of  God  who  has  a 
divine  calhng  to  fulfil  on  behalf  of  men.  He  is 
conscious  of  His  divine  Sonship  as  He  is  conscious 
of  this  vocation  to  realise  the  purpose  of  God  the 
Father  for  men.  The  latter  was  determined  for 
Him  by  His  relation  of  Sonship  to  God. 

In  the  second  century  some  Christians,  like  the 
Marcionites,  used  the  aorist  (eyvw)  to  corroborate 
their  distinction  between  the  God  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  God  of  Jesus.  '  Those  who  would 
like  to  be  wiser  than  the  apostles,'  says  Irenaeus 
{Adv.  Haer.  iv.  6.  1),  '  write  the  passage  thus  :  "  No 
one  has  known  the  Father  except  the  Son,  nor  the 
Son  except  the  Father,  and  he  to  whom  the  Son 
has  chosen  to  reveal  Him,"  interpreting  it  as  though 
the  true  God  had  been  known  by  no  one  prior  to 
the  coming  of  our  Lord,  and  denjdng  that  the  God 
whom  the  prophets  announced  was  the  Father  of 
Christ.'  This  gnostic  reading  is  adopted  for  other 
reasons  by  several  editors  including  Harnack,  who 
also  contends  {Sayings  of  Jesus,  pp.  272  f.)  that  the 
clause,  who  the  Son  is  but  the  Father,  was  interpolated 
from  Matthew  into  Luke  (x.  22)  at  an  early  stage,  and 
that  the  original  Lucan  text — which  represents  the 
sajring  better  than  the  Matthean  form — simply  ran 

All  has  been  given  over  to  me  by  the  Father, 
And  no  one  has  known  the  Father  except  the  Son, 
And  he  to  when  the  Son  reveals  Him, 


112  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

But  neither  Hamack's  facts  nor  his  inferences 
in  the  textual  field  of  early  Christian  quotations  are 
beyond  challenge  ;  ^  the  aorist  cyi/w  is  gnomic  rather 
than  historic,  and  therefore  is  not  out  of  place  in  the 
canonical  form  of  the  text ;  even  the  omission  of 
the  second  clause,  though  more  defensible,^  spoils 
the  rhythm  and  balance  of  the  passage.  It  has  to  be 
remembered  that  the  consciousness  of  His  messianic 
calling  and  character  as  God's  Son  had  been  a  revela- 
tion to  Jesus  at  the  baptism.  It  was  a  revelation 
to  Peter  at  Csesarea  Philippi — flesh  and  blood  have  not 
revealed  this  to  thee,  hut  my  Father  in  heaven  ;  though 
Peter  failed  to  understand  the  full  significance  of 
the  revelation.  And  to  Jesus  Himself  it  was  a 
mystery.  No  one  knows  the  Son  hut  the  Father.  It 
was  only  through  steadfast  obedience  to  the  Father's 
will,  through  prayer  and  temptation,  that  He  came 
to  reahse  the  meaning  of  His  Sonship  for  Himself 
and  for  men. 

The  bearing  of  the  passage  upon  God's  Fatherhood 
is  that  God  was  the  Father  of  Jesus  in  a  special 
sense,  and  that  Jesus  was  conscious  of  a  fihal 
intimacy  and  communion  which  enabled  Him  to 
reveal  God's  character  as  none  else  could,  and  to 
realise  God's  redeeming  purpose  for  the  sons  of 
men.  There  is  no  definition  of  the  divine  nature ; 
there  is  no  assertion  of  a  metaphysical  relationship 

1  Cf.  Dom  Chapman  in  Journal  of  Theological  Stvdies,  1909,  pp. 
552-66,  though  it  is  not  necessary  to  find  the  occasion  for  the  thanks- 
giving in  the  neighbourhood  of  Matt,  xvi.,  and  to  regard  the  ravra 
of  ver.  11  as  the  revelation  of  the  divine  Sonship.  The  general  sense 
is  paralleled  by  John  v.  20  and  vii.  16. 

2  It  occurs,  however,  as  early  as  Justin  Martyr.  The  variations  in 
the  order  of  the  two  clauses  do  not  seem  of  primary  significance,  in 
spite  of  Harhack's  pleading. 


m.J  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  113 

between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  It  is  not  until  we 
reach  the  Fourth  gospel  that  we  get  any  definition 
of  the  nature  of  God.  There  (iv.  24)  alongside  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God  we  find  the  statement  that  God  is 
Spirit,  i.e.  devoid  of  what  is  material,  lifted  above  the 
realm  of  the  flesh.  But  these  words  have  a  specific 
bearing  on  the  freedom  of  the  Christian  God  from 
any  embodiment  in  a  cultus  :  they  belong  to  the 
general  conception  of  the  divine  nature  in  the  Fourth 
gospel,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  they  fall 
to  be  interpreted  by  the  conception  of  the  divine 
Fatherhood.  The  God  who  is  spirit  is  the  Father. 
The  usage  of  Father  in  this  absolute  sense,  in  the 
Fourth  gospel,  practically  corresponds  to  the 
synoptic  title  of  the  Father  in  heaven,  or  the  heavenly 
Father.  It  is  hardly  possible,  without  over-subtlety, 
to  draw  distinctions  between  '  the  Father  '  and  '  my 
Father,'  on  the  Ups  of  the  Johannine  Christ,  and 
in  some  other  passages  it  is  an  equivalent  for  the 
synoptic  '  our  Father,'  a  phrase  which  is  absent 
from  the  Fourth  gospel,  where  it  is  expressly 
avoided  in  one  passage  (xx.  17),  in  order  to  keep 
before  the  mind  the  unique  Sonship  of  Christ,  in 
virtue  of  which  men  attain  to  their  position  in 
the  Father's  household.  The  technical  use  of  the 
phrase  '  the  Father '  in  the  Johannine  theology  is 
due  to  the  reflective  element,  which  regards  the 
reUgious  sonship  of  men  as  well  as  of  Christ  as 
resting  ultimately  on  the  nature  of  God,  who  is  the 
source  of  hfe.  The  kinship  and  dependence  which  are 
implied  in  sonship  are  viewed  against  a  background 
of  essential  relationship.  Tliere  is  an  approach  to 
the  older  idea  of  fatherhood  as  creative,  but  at  the 
same  time  the  creative  or  Ufe-giving  nature  of  God  as 

H 


114  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

the  Father  is  pre-eminently  exhibited  in  its  reUgious 
and  ethical  aspects,  and  this  controlling  interest 
of  the  writer  helps  to  prevent  the  so-called  meta- 
physical element  from  rendering  the  argument 
abstract  or  speculative.  Thus  even  the  relation  of 
Jesus  to  the  Father  is  not  stated  in  exclusively 
metaphysical  terms.^  It  is  represented  as  a  moral 
and  spiritual  tie,  in  which  Christ  confesses  His 
dependence  on  the  Father  :  He  remains  within  the 
love  of  the  Father  by  keeping  the  Father's  com- 
mandments (xv.  10,  viii.  29,  etc.),  and  the  same  con- 
ditions apply  to  men  (xiv.  15,  xvii.  6,  10).  To 
become  children  of  God,  to  come  to  the  Father,  is 
to  have  faith  ;  and  the  course  of  the  religious  hfe  is 
summed  up  in  the  pregnant  sentence, 

//  you  keep  my  commandments, 

you  shall  remain  within  my  love  : 

even  as  I  have  kept  my  Fathers  commandments 
and  remain  within  His  love. 

(iii)  It  is  the  fatherly  love  of  God  which  also 
explains  the  new  sense  of  joy  and  freedom  breathed 
by  Jesus  into  the  souls  of  men.  He  gave  them 
confidence  in  the  character  of  God,  especially  with 
regard  to  the  fears  and  hesitation  born  of  sin. 
The  Father  did  not  view  men  as  totally  depraved ; 
they  were  captives  to  be  released  from  the  slavery 
of  evil,  sick  folk  to  be  cured,  wandering  souls  to  be 
brought  back  to  the  father's  household,  disobedient 
sons  to  be  reasoned  with.  The  synoptic  gospels 
contain  no  theory  of  sin.  They  show  how  Jesus 
viewed  it  as  a  transgression  of  the  divine  law,  as  a 
choice  of  the  world  in  preference  to  God  above  all, 

1  Cf.  J.  Weiss,  Die  Nachfolge  Christi,  pp.  46  f.,  54  f. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  115 

or  as  egoism  over  against  God  and  man.  He  spoke 
of  it  as  a  debt,  a  disease,  a  defilement.  It  was 
pmiished  by  suffering  in  this  world,  and  by  exclu- 
sion from  the  presence  of  God  in  the  world  to  come. 
Jesus  had  much  to  say  about  its  punishment,  especi- 
ally in  the  case  of  the  impenitent,  and  more  to  say 
about  its  forgiveness,  about  the  wiUingness  of  the 
Father  to  receive  the  disobedient  back  again,  about 
His  unvarying  love  for  His  children  even  in  their 
waywardness.  He  had  little  or  nothing  to  say 
about  the  origin  of  sin.  Beyond  the  fact  that  man 
was  responsible  for  his  offences  against  the  law  of 
God,  and  that  sin  arose  from  within,  from  the  evil 
will  or  the  weakness  of  the  flesh,  there  is  no  direct 
clue  to  Christ's  view  of  how  sin  came  into  being. 
He  does  not  speculate,  for  example,  upon  the  evil 
impulse,  as  the  rabbis  did.  What  sin  involved  is 
brought  out  rather  in  the  sacrifice  which  its  pardon 
required  from  Him  as  the  Son  ;  it  is  in  its  conse- 
quences for  Himself  that  the  seriousness  of  human 
sin  becomes  evident. 

In  the  Fourth  gospel  the  conception  of  sin  is 
worked  out  to  some  extent.  The  thought  of  forgive- 
ness is  presented  in  terms  of  the  giving  of  life  eternal, 
however,  rather  than  in  the  simpler  synoptic  manner, 
and  this  may  account  for  the  fact  that  an  entire 
cluster  of  questions  remains  unanswered — how  the 
Logos  became  incarnate,  how  the  darkness  originated 
which  confronted  the  light  in  a  universe  created  by 
God,  or  how  the  devil  came  to  be  the  opponent  of 
God.  At  one  point  the  last-named  problem  does 
appear  to  be  raised,  in  viii.  44  f.,  where  it  is  said  that 
the  devil  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning  and  has 
no  place  in  the  Truth,  for  the  Truth  is  not  in  him. 


116  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

When  he  tells  a  lie  he  is  speaking  from  his  own  nature,^ 
for  a  liar  he  is  and  the  father  of  lies  (or  falsehood). 
Wlien  €(TTr]K€v  iv,  which  is  rendered  has  no  place  in, 
is  taken  as  an  equivalent  iov  fell  from  or  failed  to  keep 
his  place  in,  the  Truth,  a  basis  may  be  found  for  a 
doctrine  of  the  devil's  fall  :  but  this  interpretation  is 
unnecessary,  and  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  passage 
to  suggest  such  a  mythological  speculation,  not  even 
in  the  cryptic  allusion  either  to  the  envy  of  the  devil, 
which  brought  about  the  fall  of  Adam,  or  more  pro- 
bably to  the  murder  of  Abel.  The  only  confirma- 
tion of  such  an  idea  would  be  the  closing  words,  if 
they  were  rendered,  as  they  might  be  grammatically, 
for  his  father  also  is  a  liar.  This  view  was  apparently 
taken  by  Macarius  Magnes,  who  translates  the  first 
words  of  verse  44,  you  are  of  the  father  of  the  devil. 
It  would  tally  with  the  Gnostic  theory  that  the 
devil's  father  was  a  demiurge  or  archon,  Sabaoth, 
the  God  of  the  Jews.  Such  an  exploitation  of 
Gnostic  mythology,  in  the  interests  of  anti-Jewish 
propaganda,  would  be  entirely  out  of  keeping, 
however,  with  the  general  tone  of  the  gospel.  To 
meet  the  difficulties  of  the  existing  text,  it  has 
been  proposed  either  to  change  the  subject  after 
the  Truth  is  not  in  him,  and  read — when  any  one  tells 
a  lie,  he  is  speaking  from  his  own  nature  (or,  An  keep- 
ing with  his  own  family),  for  his  father  also-{i.e.  the 
devil)  is  a  liar ;  or  to  restore  the  original  reference 
of  the  words  to  Cain — you  are  of  Cain  and  are  fain 
to  do  his  murderous  desires  (Wellhausen),  etc.  But 
neither    of     these     expedients    is    plausible.     Tho 

1  Dr.  Abbott  suggests  that  ^k  tC}v  IbLwv  here  may  mean  that  the 
devil  speaks  out  of  men  as  hia  family  {Johannine  Orammar,  2378, 
2728>. 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  117 

Johannine  idiom  points  to  the  usual  rendering, 
you  are  of  your  father  the  devil  ...  a  liar  he  is  and 
the  father  thereof. 

Even  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  however,  where  the 
dialectic  used  for  the  controversial  purposes  of  the 
writing  naturally  tends  to  elaborate  some  of  the 
antitheses  cormected  with  the  problem  of  sin,  it  is 
remarkable  that  several  of  the  specific  allusions  to 
sin  are  historical  and  apologetic.  Thus  both  in  viii. 
21,  24,  and  xvi.  9,  the  primary  reference  is  to  the 
sin  of  Judaism  in  rejecting  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God, 
as  the  true  messiah.  You  shall  die  in  your  sins, 
if  you  do  not  believe  that  1  am  (He  who  is  from 
above,  ver.  23,  the  divine  Son) ;  this  epitaph  on 
imbelieving  Judaism  is  filled  out  by  the  declaration 
that  the  Spirit  of  Christ  will  enable  the  disciples 
to  show  how  the  resurrection  vindicated  the  char- 
acter and  mission  of  Jesus,  by  proving  that  the 
world  was  wrong  in  refusing  to  believe  in  His 
divine  authority,  and  in  condemning  Him  to  death. 
The  same  idea  reappears  in  xv.  22  f.  and  ix.  41, 
where  the  sin  of  Judaism  in  refusing  to  accept  Christ 
is  equivalent  to  the  unpardonable  sin  of  the  synoptic 
tradition.  Even  in  the  argumentative  passage, 
viii.  34  f.,  the  primary  reference  is  also  apologetic. 
Judaism,  by  its  deHberate  enmity  to  Christ,  proves 
that  it  has  no  vital  and  permanent  place  in  the 
household  of  God  the  Father.  Such  unbelief  is  sin, 
and  any  one  who  commits  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin ;  slaves, 
unlike  sons,  do  not  belong  essentially  to  the  house- 
hold. In  fact,  this  deadly  unbelief  of  Judaism 
identifies  them  with  the  household  of  Satan,  the 
antagonist  of  God,  and  deprives  them  of  any  claim 
to  be  legitimate  members  of  the  elect  household 


118  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

in  which  Christ,  as  the  Son  of  God,  has  authority. 
This  latter  thought  widens  out  in  the  phrase,  if  the 
Son  frees  you  from  sin,  you  will  be  really  free, 
i.e.  vital  members  of  the  divine  household,  in  full 
possession  of  sonship.  The  context  of  the  phrase 
shows  how  this  freedom  is  bestowed  and  received. 
//  you  remain  ivithin  my  tvord  {i.e.  within  the  element 
of  my  revelation  of  God,  living  in  harmony  with 
its  environment),  you  are  really  disciples  of  mine, 
and  you  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
you  free.  Freedom  from  sin,  therefore,  means  the 
acceptance  of  Christ's  revelation  as  a  revelation  of 
sonship  to  God  the  Father,  which  is  bound  up  with 
faith  in  Himself.  The  sin  which  is  contemplated 
is  the  special  sin  of  those  who  deliberately  refuse 
to  avail  themselves  of  Christ  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
life  of  God,  In  a  word,  this  sin  is  sin  against  the 
light ;  it  can  only  be  committed  by  those  who  are 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  final  revelation  of 
God  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ,  and  who  prefer  their 
traditional  religion,  or  irreligion.  Finally,  we  may 
add,  this  is  borne  out  by  the  parallel  antithesis  in 
XV.  14-15,  where  Christ  contrasts  slavery  not  with 
sonship  but  with  friendship.  You  are  my  friends 
if  you  do  what  I  command  you.  I  no  longer  call  you 
slaves,  for  a  slave  does  not  know  what  his  master  does  ; 
hut  I  have  called  you  friends,  for  I  have  made  knowm 
to  you  all  that  I  heard  frcm  my  Father.  Here  the 
intimate  confidence  which  is  the  mark  of  the  Chris- 
tian experience  and  obedience  is  again  mediated  by 
'he  revelation  of  Christ. 

It  is  the  same  conception  of  freedom,  though  in  a 
less  theological  sense,  that  underlies  the  argument  of 
Jesus  about  the  payment  of  the  temple  dues  (Matt, 
xvii.  24  f.),  where  He   contrasts  the  sons  of  God 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  119 

with  aliens  ;  the  former,  i.e.  Christians,  are  *  free,' 
the  latter,  i.e.  the  Jews,  are  in  bondage.  '  The  word 
"  liberty,"  '  as  Dr.  Carpenter  observes,  '  does  not 
occur  in  the  first  three  Gospels.  But  the  idea  is 
everywhere.'  ^  Whether  viewed  as  release  from  the 
tyranny  of  Satan  and  the  evil  spirits,  or  as  deliver- 
ance from  the  minute,  vexatious  legulations  of  the 
Law,  or  as  a  disentanglement  from  hampering  scruples 
and  doubts  about  the  goodness  of  God,  the  kingdom 
as  preached  by  Jesus  lifted  a  load  from  the  conscience 
of  many.  There  is  nothing  in  the  synoptic  theology 
which  quite  corresponds  to  the  antithesis  of  Law 
and  Christian  freedom  in  Paul ;  even  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  the  freedom  of  Christ  is  rather  from  the 
material  nature  which  thwarts  the  Spirit  and  faith. 
But  the  personality  and  mission  of  Jesus  revealed 
a  conception  of  God's  nature  which  seemed  like 
coming  into  the  open  air  from  a  close  room.  He 
was  a  Father  willing  and  eager  for  men's  salvation, 
for  their  return  to  true  sonship,  for  their  release 
from  the  bondage  and  false  freedom  of  sin.  Jesus 
said.  The  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  save  the  lost. 
Before  Him,  on  this  mission,  the  cross  loomed,  as 
the  outcome  of  ffis  work  :  behind  Him  lay  the 
eternal  love  of  the  Father  ^  for  His  own.  The 
supreme  obstacle  to  the  coming  of  the  Father's 
kingdom  was  the  sin  of  the  people  ;  and  repentance 
was  the  condition  of  receiving  it — 

*  Only  heart-sorrow 
And  a  clear  life  ensuing.' 

1  Dr.  J.  Estlin  Carpenter,  The  First  Three  Gospels,  p.  374. 

2  This  is  specially  prominent  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  with  its 
emphasis  on  the  truth  that  it  is  the  Father  who  prompts  and  inspires 
the  work  of  the  Son  (v.  30 ;  vii.  17-18,  28 ;  viiL  28,  42 ;  xii.  49  ;  xiv. 
10,  etc.). 


120  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

This  *  is  the  thought  of  Mark  ii.  10  f.,  that  Jesus, 
as  Son  of  man,  has  authority  on  earth  to  forgive  sins 
as  well  as  to  cast  out  evil  spirits.  The  Satan,  whose 
agents  possess  the  bodies  of  men,  is  also  the  tempter, 
and  messiah's  work  is  to  pronounce  forgiveness  as 
well  as  to  cure  diseases,  both  being  expressions  of 
the  divine  will  for  men.  Consequently,  the  death 
of  Jesus,  or  the  Son  of  God,  is  connected  primarily 
with  the  forgivenegs  of  sins,  as  the  supreme  boon 
of  the  kingdom  which  overthrows  the  anti-divine 
reign  of  sin  and  death.  But  even  Mark's  gospel 
which  lays  special  stress  upon  the  authority  of 
Jesus  over  evil  spirits,  does  not  state  the  meaning 
of  His  death  in  terms  of  a  victory  over  the 
devil.  Man's  rebellion  and  despair  are  to  the  fore- 
front, to  be  overcome  by  God's  forgiveness.  It 
is  curious  that  the  Fourth  gospel,  which  omits  all 
the  instances  of  exorcism  from  the  ministry,  does 
cormect  the  Passion  with  the  devil  (xiv.  30,  xix.  11),^ 
but  this  is  due  to  the  special  pragmatism  of  that 
gospel ;  Judas,  e.g.,  is  represented  as  possessed 
by  Satan  (xiii.  2)  for  his  work  of  treachery.  The 
conception  of  the  crucifixion  as  the  work  of  the 
evil  spirits  of  this  world,  which  Paul  reproduces 
(1  Cor.  ii.  8),  is  significantly  absent  from  the  theology 
of  the  synoptic  gospels — a  fresh  proof,  by  the  way, 
of  their  independent  attitude  towards  the  christology 

1  In  some  circles  of  contemporary  Jewish  piety,  the  messianic 
reign  was  expected  only  after  a  period  of  national  repentance  ;  e.g.  in 
Assumptio  Mosis,  i.  17-18,  God  is  to  be  worshipped  in  the  temple 
*  until  the  day  of  repentance,  in  the  visitation  wherewith  the  Lord 
shall  visit  them  in  the  consummation  of  the  end  of  the  days. '  After 
the  fall  of  the  temple,  this  belief  continued  to  prevail  in  rabbinic 
theology. 

2  There  are  slight  traces  of  this  view  already  in  Luke  {e.g.  xzii.  id). 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  121 

of  Paulinism.^  It  is  in  Ignatius  and  the  subsequent 
theology  that  the  antithesis  of  the  devil  and  God 
in  the  saving  work  of  Christ  becomes  really  prominent. 

(iv)  Finally,  it  is  this  revelation  of  love  as  the 
character  of  God  the  Father  which  involves  the 
tremendous  severity  of  judgment  upon  those  who 
are  guilty  of  the  worst  sin  in  the  world — the  sin 
against  love,  dehberate  rejection  of  love  as  the 
one  power  of  life.^  It  is  to  this  conviction  of  Jesus 
about  the  Father  that  His  passionate  invectives 
against  all  who  misrepresented  God  are  due,  as  well 
as  His  warnings  against  those  who  deliberately 
trifled  with  the  love  of  God,  or  with  its  costly 
expression  in  His  own  mission.  The  full  orb  of  the 
divine  Fatherhood,  in  the  gospels,  includes  majesty 
and  awe  as  well  as  loving-kindness.  The  modem 
sentimental  view  of  the  Fatherhood  as  celestial 
good-nature  is  wholly  inadequate  to  the  teaching 
of  Jesus,  either  as  regards  the  forgiveness  or  the 
punishment  of  sins. 

The  imphcates  of  forgiveness  are  brought  out  in 
the  tremendous  saying  (Matt.  x.  28= Luke  xii.  4-5)  : 
Be  not  afraid  of  those  who  hill  the  body,  but  are 
unable  to  kill  the  soul.  Rather  be  afraid  of  him  who 
is  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and  body  in  Gehenna.  Or, 
in  the  fuller  Lucan  version  :    I  tell  you,  my  friends, 

1  In  the  eschatological  section,  of  Matt.  xxv.  31  f.  the  righteous 
inherit  the  kingdom  prepared  for  them  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  whereas  the  selfish  and  worldly  are  consigned  to  the  eternal 
Jire  which  is  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels. 

2  On  the  Jewish  scheme,  the  judgment  formed  an  essential  part  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Law.  When  the  latter  was  replaced  or  restated 
as  love  to  God,  implying  love  to  one's  neighbour,  the  conception 
of  the  divine  judgment  was  correspondingly  humanised  and  at  the 
same  time  rendered  more  stringent. 


122  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

he  not  afraid  of  those  who  kill  the  body,  and  after  that 
can  do  Twthing  further.  I  will  show  you  whom  to 
fear  ;  fear  him  who  has  the  power  after  death  of  casting 
into  Gehenna.  Yea,  I  tell  you,  he  afraid  of  him.  So 
Jesus  judges  the  sin  of  cowardice,  which  amounts 
to  a  denial  of  God  through  the  love  of  self.  As  the 
context  shows,  such  a  traitorous  preference  of  one's 
safety  and  comfort  to  the  interests  of  the  kingdom 
is  visited  by  exclusion  from  the  presence  of  God. 
Whosoever  denies  me  hefore  men,  I  will  deny  him 
before  my  Father  in  heaven.  The  selfish  and  cowardly 
are  disowned  by  the  Jesus  of  whom  they  have  been 
ashamed  on  earth.  Once  again  we  are  thus  brought 
round  to  the  close  connection  between  God's  action 
and  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ ;  the  cause  of  God 
is  bound  up  with  the  character  and  words  of  Christ, 
and  the  judgment  upon  unfaithful  servants  of  the 
cause  is  represented  indifferently  as  punishment  at 
the  hand  of  God,  and  repudiation  by  Jesus  Christ. 
This  is  an  outcome  of  the  relation  between  God 
the  Father  and  His  kingdom.  The  righteousness 
of  the  latter  involves  the  forgiveness  and  the 
judgment  of  trespasses,  and  this  is  what  the  mission 
of  Jesus,  as  God's  representative,  signifies.  'The 
kingdom  of  God  is  the  centre  of  all  spiritual  faith, 
and  the  perception  that  that  kingdom  can  never 
be  realised  without  a  personal  centre,  a  representa- 
tive of  God  with  man  and  man  with  God,  was  the 
thought,  reaching  far  beyond  the  narrow  range  of 
Pharisaic  legalism,  which  was  the  last  lesson  of  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  '  {En- 
cyclopcedia  Biblica,  3063).  The  bearing  of  this  truth 
upon  the  forgiveness  of  wrongdoing  and  rebellion  may 
be  illustrated  from  the  setting  as  well  as  from  the  con- 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  123 

tents  of  the  parables  in  Luke  xv.  The  tax-gatherers 
and  sinners  were  all  flocking  to  Jesus,  and  this 
aroused  the  indignation  of  the  Jewish  authorities. 
They  murmured,  saying,  This  man  welcomes  sinners 
and  eats  with  them  !  The  reply  of  Jesus  is  conveyed 
in  three  parables,  only  the  third  of  which,  at  first 
sight,  seems  exactly  apposite.  The  action  of  the 
woman  who  searches  the  house  till  she  discovers  the 
lost  piece  of  money,  and  of  the  shepherd  who  wiU 
not  rest  till  he  has  brought  back  the  stray  sheep  to 
the  fold,  corresponds  to  a  Jesus  who  seeks  men, 
rather  than  to  one  who  is  criticised  for  allowing  them 
to  seek  Him.  Apparently,  it  is  in  the  third  parable 
of  the  profligate  son,  who  voluntarily  returns  to 
find  a  welcome  at  home,  that  the  full  justification  of 
the  relations  between  Jesus  and  the  local  sinners 
is  presented.  Now,  it  is  no  doubt  true  that  in  the 
first  two  parables,  as  in  the  third,  Jesus  is  primarily 
defending  Himself.  So  far  from  being  embarrassed 
or  compromised  by  associating  with  the  disreput- 
able sinners  who  were  attracted  to  His  company,  He 
declares  that  this  is  the  real  happiness  of  His  minis- 
try, a  moral  joy  with  which  any  one  who  understands 
the  divine  heart  should  sympathise.  Rejoice  with 
me,  instead  of  criticising  me.  But  inferentially  He 
is  defending  the  instinct  which  led  these  religious 
outcasts  to  associate  with  Him.  Repentance,  He 
argues,  as  a  return  to  the  love  and  law  of  God,  is 
welcome  to  God  just  because  it  is  the  end  for  which 
God  works  and  waits  in  human  fife.  The  point  of 
the  first  two  parables,  where  the  initiative  is  repre- 
sented as  wholly  God's,  is  that  there  is  joy  in  heaven 
over  a  single  penitent  sinner.  And  the  same  note 
of  joy  is  struck  in  the  third  parable,  where  the  father 


124  THE  THEOLOGY  01  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

does  nothing  to  induce  the  son's  return.  Let  us  he 
merry,  for  this  my  son  was  dead  and  is  come  to  life 
again,  he  was  lost — Hke  the  coin  and  the  sheep — and 
he  is  found. 

What  Jesus  therefore  means  to  teach  is  the 
double  appeal  of  God  which  motives  human  repent- 
ance. On  the  one  hand,  there  are  natures  into 
which  He  requires,  as  it  were,  to  break,  in  order  to 
arouse  them  to  theii  danger  and  loss.  Upon  the 
other  hand,  repentance  may  be  stirred  apparently 
without  any  direct  interposition  of  God.  The  latter 
is  the  conception  of  the  third  parable ;  but  even 
there  the  unconscious  desires  for  a  truer  life,  under 
the  impulse  of  reconciliation,  are  the  effect  of  the 
Father's  Spirit  working  seriously  on  the  conscience. 
The  stress  of  the  third  parable  is  not  to  be  confined 
to  the  latter  part,  in  which  Jesus  deliberately  answers 
the  churlish  attitude  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees 
as  represented  by  the  elder  brother.  The  first  part, 
in  which  the  profligate  son  dares  to  return  home  and 
finds  that  his  penitence  is  not  presumptuous,  is  a 
shield  thrown  over  the  people  who  had  ventured 
near  to  Jesus  to  Hsten  to  His  revelation  of  God's 
love  and  pity.  God  the  Father  is  ready  to  forgive  ; 
He  takes  sin  seriously,  and  those  who  also  take  it 
seriously  find  He  is  a  God  who  loves  to  pardon. 

In  either  case,  the  motive  of  repentance  lies  in  the 
character  of  God,  and  this  is  the  new  element  which 
makes  the  teaching  and  mission  of  Jesus  a  gospel. 
When  Jesus  began  His  ministry.  His  message  ran  : 
The  kingdom  of  God  is  at  Jmnd,  repent  (Mark  i.  15). 
Even  the  call  to  repentance  is  in  itself  a  gospel.  It 
imphes  that  men  can  really  turn  to  God ;  they  are 
not  helpless  automata  in  a  world  of  unmoral  deter- 


m.]  THE  GOD  OF  JESUS  125 

minism.  But  the  gospel  of  repentance,  as  Jesus  pro- 
claimed it,  has  still  further  claims  to  novelty.  It  was 
an  advance  upon  any  revelation  of  God  even  within 
Judaism.  Sinners  drew  near  to  hear  him.  *  Surely,' 
says  Mr.  Montefiore,^  '  this  is  a  new  note,  something 
which  we  have  not  yet  heard  in  the  Old  Testament 
or  of  its  heroes,  something  which  we  do  not  hear  in 
the  Talmud  or  of  its  heroes.  .  .  .  The  virtues  of 
repentance  are  gloriously  praised  in  the  rabbinical 
literature,  but  this  direct  search  for,  and  appeal  to, 
the  sinner  are  new  and  moving  notes  of  high  import 
and  significance.'  Only,  it  has  to  be  recollected 
that  these  sinners  did  not  merely  venture  close  to 
Jesus  to  listen  to  Him.  They  were  welcomed  by  Him 
to  God.  He  associated  with  them,  the  Pharisees 
complained.  His  gospel  of  repentance  was  not 
simply  an  announcement  that  God  was  a  forgiving 
Father,  but  a  practical  expression  of  what  that 
forgiveness  meant,  in  its  moral  obhgations  of  loyalty 
and  obedience.  And  this  in  turn  involved  still  more. 
The  death  as  well  as  the  hfe  of  Jesus  was  necessary 
to  the  full  disclosure  of  God's  heart  of  mercy  and 
welcome.  The  Father's  dealings  with  sinful  men 
issued  in  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  as  the  supreme  appeal 
to  the  conscience.  Take  a  word  like  this  :  //  thy 
brother  sin^,  rebuke  him ;  and  if  he  repents, 
forgive  him  (Luke  xvii.  3,  cf.  Matt,  xviii.  15).  The 
forgiveness  which  a  Christian  is  to  grant  to  his 
erring  brother  depends  upon  the  penitence  of  the 
latter.  But  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Christian  to  induce 
that  penitence  by  pointing  out  to  the  offender  his 
wrongdoing,  by  bringing  home  to  him  a  sense  of 

1  Cf.   T?ie  Synoptic  Gospels,  i.  pp.  Ixxviii,  86  ;  ii.  574,  985 ;  Some 
Elements  of  the  Religious  Teaching  of  Jesus,  p.  67. 


126  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

his  sin.  He  has  a  moral  right  not  only  to  our  forgive- 
ness but  to  our  rebuke.  Now,  what  corresponds 
to  that  in  the  relation  of  God  to  men  ?  Forgive  us 
our  sins  as  we  forgive  those  who  have  sinned  against 
us.  In  this  prayer  we  are  taught  by  Jesus  to  expect 
that  God  will  treat  us  as  we  treat  our  offending 
brothers,  and  bring  home  to  us  our  offences.  Rebuke 
him ;  that  is  the  first  part  of  our  moral  responsi- 
bility to  any  one  who  has  sinned.  What  is  God's 
rebuke  of  us  when  we  go  wrong  ?  What  is  it  that 
we  have  a  right  to  expect  from  God  as  the  supreme 
inducement  to  penitence  ?  The  theology  of  the 
gospels  answers  that  God  the  Father  sent  His  Son 
to  deal  with  this  sinful  state  of  men.  It  is  the  con- 
fession of  the  church,  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  that 
God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  own  Son  to 
save  men  from  destruction.  The  presuppositions  of 
this  behef  are  presented  already  in  the  S3rQoptic 
tradition  ;  God  creates  the  very  desire  for  forgive- 
ness by  bringing  home  to  men  what  sin  means  to 
Him  and  to  themselves,  as  a  sin  against  love ;  and 
this  forgiveness,  with  the  judgment  on  which  it 
rested,  needed  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  to  reach  men 
fully.  The  details  of  this  religious  truth  belong  to 
the  christology  proper,  but  the  fundamental  basis 
underneath  it  is  the  inexorable  love  of  the  Father 
for  men  as  interpreted  through  the  Son,  which  the 
relation  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  to  the  death 
of  Jesus  in  the  synoptic  tradition  brings  out  in  one 
deep  aspect. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  127 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  PEKSON  OF  JESUS 

*  We  modem  theologians,'  says  Schweitzer,^  *  are 
too  proud  of  our  historical  method.  .  .  There  was 
a  danger  of  our  thrusting  ourselves  between  men  and 
the  gospels,  and  refusing  to  leave  the  individual 
man  alone  with  the  sayings  of  Jesus.  There  was  a 
danger  that  we  should  offer  them  a  Jesus  who  was 
too  small,  because  we  forced  Him  into  conformity 
with  our  human  standards  and  human  psychology.' 
What  the  sajdngs  of  Jesus  indicate  about  His  own 
person  is  primarily  its  epoch-making,  its  absolute 
significance  for  men.  We  have  already  (p.  71) 
found  this  consciousness  of  His  supreme  position 
in  the  great  beatitude  of  privilege  : — 

Blessed  are  your  eyes,  for  they  see, 

And  your  ears,  for  they  hear. 
I  tell  you,  many  prophets  and  just  men  ^  have  longed 
to  see  what  you  see  but  have  not  seen  it, 

And  to  hear  what  you  hear  but  have  not  heard  it. 

In  Matthew  this  follows  a  quotation  from  Isaiah, 
which  is  also  cited  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  for 
much  the  same  purpose  (xii.  39  f.),  to  account  for 
the  obduracy  of  the  public,  who  are  no  longer  the 

1  The  Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus,  p.  398. 

2  Luke  substitutes  kings  for  just  men. 


128  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Galileans  but  the  Jews,  and  also  to  explain,  charac- 
teristically, that  Isaiah  the  prophet  had  a  vision 
of  the  pre-existent  Christ  or  Logos.  These  things 
said  Isaiah  because  he  saw  his  glory,  and  he  spoke  of 
him.  The  latter  conception  had  been  already  ex- 
pressed in  the  phrase.  Your  father  Abraham  exulted 
to  see  my  day.  The  Fourth  gospel  thus  deepens 
and  at  the  same  time  reverses  the  synoptic  saying. 
The  prophets  and  just  men  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  not  simply  longed  to  see  the  messianic  day  of 
Jesus  Christ ;  they  had  seen  it.  The  pragmatism 
of  the  Logos-idea  enables  the  writer  of  the  Fourth 
gospel  to  beheve  that  the  saints  and  prophets  of 
the  Old  Testament  had  more  than  anticipations  of 
the  end  ;  their  visions  and  prophecies  were  due  to 
the  pre-existent  Christ  who  even  then  revealed  His 
glory  to  their  gaze.  The  glory  of  Yahveh  which 
Isaiah  saw  in  his  vision  was  really  the  glory  of  the 
pre-existent  Logos,  who  became  incarnate  in  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  theology  of  the  Fourth  gospel  thus  elaborates 
the  truth  that  the  mission  of  Jesus  had  been  antici- 
pated in  the  history  of  Israel.  This  is  the  idea  of 
the  saying  in  viii.  56  :  Your  father  Abraliam  exulted 
to  see  my  day.  It  is  the  conception  of  Paul  [e.g. 
Gal.  iii.  16  f.),  who  also  traces  a  messianic  significance 
in  Gen.  xvii.  17  ;  and  Philo,  before  him,  had  explained 
{De  Mutat.  Nominum,  29-30),  commenting  on  the 
Genesis-passage,  that  Abraham's  laughter  was  the 
joy  of  anticipating  a  happiness  which  was  already 
within  reach  ;  '  fear  is  grief  before  grief,  and  so 
hope  is  joy  before  joy.'  But  Philo  characteristically 
avoids  any  messianic  interpretation,  such  as  the 
Fourth  gospel  presents. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  129 

There  is  another  passage  in  the  book  of  Isaiah 
where  some  prophet  of  the  exile,  describing  his 
divine  mission  to  Israel,  exclaims  : 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me, 
Because  he  has  anointed  me  to  preach  good  tidings 
to  the  poor, 
He  has  sent  me  to  proclaim  release  for  captives  and 
recovery  of  sight  for  the  blind, 
To  set  the  bruised  free. 

To  proclaim  the  hordes  year  of  welcome  and  our 
God's  day  of  vengeance. 

Luke  (iv.  16  f.)  relates  how  Jesus  read  this  passage 
in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth,  as  far  as  the  Lord's 
year  of  welcome,  when  He  stopped  and  began  His 
address  by  telling  the  audience  that  this  passage 
of  prophecy  was  fulfilled  there  and  then  before 
them  in  His  own  mission  to  Israel.  The  omission 
of  the  last  clause  by  Jesus  is  significant.  As  the 
later  author  of  the  Epistle  to  Diognetus  put  it 
(7)  :  Was  He  sent  to  rule,  to  inspire  fear  and 
terror  ?  By  no  means.  God  sent  Him  in  gentle- 
ness and  meekness,  as  a  king  sending  his  royal 
son.  .  .  ;  sent  Him  to  save,  to  persuade,  not  to  use 
force,  for  force  has  nothing  to  do  with  God.  But 
it  is  the  larger  conception  of  Christ's  person  and 
mission  as  the  fulfilment  of  older  prophecy,  and  as 
the  inauguration  of  a  new  religious  era,  which  is 
most  prominent — a  conception  which  dominates 
the  theology  of  the  gospels,  and  which  is  derived 
from  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  Himself.  The 
supreme  significance  of  His  work  for  men  rests  upon 
the  unique  relation  between  Him  and  the  Father, 

I 


130  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

and  this  is  expressed  in  the  various  titles  which  were 
apphed  to  Him,  or  which  He  appHed  to  Himself. 
A  brief  survey  of  these  will  suffice  to  give  an 
outUne  of  His  person  and  functions  in  the  new 
order  of  things  which  His  mission  introduced. 

(a)  The  first  is  His  divine  Sonship. 

According  to  the  gospels  the  consciousness  which 
Jesus  had  of  His  Sonship  was  a  consciousness  of 
purpose,  a  consciousness  of  being  sent  to  fulfil  the 
ends  of  God  on  earth.  It  is  the  good  pleasure  of 
the  Father  to  give  men  the  kingdom  (Luke  xii.  32), 
and  this  boon  is  mediated  through  Jesus,  who  reveals 
to  men  the  true  nature  of  God  their  King  and  Father, 
and  dies  to  inaugurate  His  reign  on  earth.  The 
messianic  consciousness  was  the  specific  form  which 
this  sense  of  vocation  assumed  for  Jesus,  but  it 
was  determined  and  shaped  by  his  inner  conscious- 
ness of  God's  character  as  His  Father  and  the  Father 
of  men.  This  is  of  fundamental  importance,  and  it 
requires  to  be  held  firmly  in  order  to  see  the 
relevant  data  in  their  true  proportions. 

The  voice  of  divine  approval  at  the  baptism  and 
at  the  transfiguration,  which  hails  Jesus  as  the  Son 
of  God,  denotes  primarily  His  consecration  to  the 
will  of  the  Father.  But  the  consciousness  of  Sonship 
did  not  date  from  the  baptism  ;  otherwise  it  would 
be  no  more  than  His  consecration  to  the  messianic 
task  which  now  dawned  upon  Him.  His  con- 
ception of  the  latter  cannot  be  understood  apart 
from  the  deeper  relationship  of  His  nature  to  Grod 
which  underlay  it.  The  salient  feature  of  the  baptism- 
stories,  so  far  as  the  theology  of  the  gospels  is  con- 
cerned, is  that  they  denote  the  filial  rather  than  the 
messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus  at  the  outset  of 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  131 

His  ministry.^  The  functions  of  Christ  in  the 
kingdom  are  determined  through  EQs  personal 
relation  to  the  Father.  He  is  messiah  because  He 
is  God's  Son  ;  He  is  not  God's  Son  simply  in  virtue 
of  His  messianic  calling.  It  was  His  very  concep- 
tion of  God  as  Father,  as  His  Father  in  a  unique 
sense,  and  as  the  Father  of  men,  that  determined 
His  preaching  of  what  the  kingdom  meant,  and 
differentiated  it  from  current  conceptions,  eschato- 
logical,  rabbinic,  and  nationalist.  This  is  the 
primary  factor  in  the  christology  of  the  gospels,  and 
unless  it  is  assigned  its  full  weight  the  ideas  of  the 
kingdom,  of  man,  and  of  the  world  fail  to  occupy  their 
proper  focus.  '  With  the  most  careful  and  reverent 
apphcation  of  psychological  methods,  it  is  obvious 
that  our  Lord's  consciousness  of  Sonship  must  have 
preceded  in  time  the  consciousness  of  messiahship, 
must  indeed  have  formed  a  stepping-stone  to  the 
latter.  ...  In  His  soul  the  consciousness  of  what 
He  vxis  must  have  come  first,  and  only  when  this 
had  attained  to  the  height  of  consciousness  of  Son- 
ship  could  the  tremendous  leap  be  taken  to  the 
consciousness  of  messiahship.'  ^  What  is  on  the 
whole  central,  therefore,  is  the  sense  of  His  special 
union  with  the  Father.  The  messianic  consciousness 
is  a  modification  of  this,  and  no  estimate  of  the  aim 
and  function  of  Jesus  is  adequate  unless  it  allows 
for  the  fact  that  He  was  messiah  and  more  than 
messiah,  that  His  consciousness  of  service  to  God 
and  man  lay  behind  the  messianic  vocation,  instead 

1  Cf.  especially  the  Lucan  version  (iii.  21-22),  which  brings  out  the 
personal  and  spiritual  experience  underlying  the  new  sense  of  vocation. 

2  Harnack,  Sayings  of  Jesus,  pp.  245-6.     This  aspect  has  been 
emphasised  especially  by  Baldensperger. 


132  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

of  springing  out  of  it,  and  that  the  very  critical 
attitude  which  He  took  up  towards  current  messianic 
hopes,  traRscendental  no  less  than  poUtical,  was  due 
to  this  fundamental  consciousness  of  Sonship  to 
the  Father.  This  is  the  fact  against  which  the 
theories  of  rigorous  eschatology  beat  in  vain. 
WTien  Schweitzer,  for  example,  asks,  '  What  is  there 
to  prove  that  Jesus'  distinctive  faith  in  the  Father- 
hood of  God  ever  existed  independently,  and  not 
as  an  alternative  form  of  historically-conditioned 
messianic  consciousness  ? '  the  only  answer  is, 
circunispice.  Unless  the  critic  insists  upon  view- 
ing the  teaching  of  Jesus  through  a  small,  rigid  glass 
of  messianic  eschatology,  there  are  few  things  more 
luminous  than  the  fact  that  the  messianic  vocation 
of  Jesus  has  always  to  be  understood  as  conditioned 
by  His  special  consciousness  of  Sonship,  and  not 
vice-versa.  It  is  the  fihal,  not  the  messianic  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  which  is  the  basis  of  Christianity. 
This  is  the  conviction  which  determines  the  theology 
of  the  gospels,  and  it  is  also  a  conviction  which 
goes  back  to  the  mind  of  Jesus  Himself. 

The  voice  at  the  baptism.  Thou  art  my  Son,  the 
Beloved,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,  blends  the  two 
ideas  of  the  Son  of  God  in  the  second  Psalm,  and  of 
the  servant  of  Yahveh  in  Isaiah  xlii.  Whether  or 
not  the  second  Psalm  was  originally  messianic,  as 
Wellhausen  claims,  a  messianic  significance  was 
attached  to  it  before  Jesus  in  some  circles  of  Jewish 
piety .^  Though  the  use  of  Son  of  God  to  denote 
messiah  does  not  seem  to  have  been  prevalent,  it  was 
not  entirely  unknown.  But  while  it  is  applied  to  Jesus, 
in  the  gospels,  it  is  never  used  by  Him  to  denote  His 
1  Cf.  G.  H.  Box,  The  Ezra- Apocalypse  (1912),  pp.  Ivi-lvii. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  133 

own  person.  Grod  is  His  Father,  and  the  title  Son  of 
God  is  an  inference  from  that  position  of  divine  Son- 
ship,  but  He  speaks  of  Himself  as  the  Son,  not  as  the 
Son  of  God,^  as  e.g.  in  the  saying  :  No  one  knows  about 
that  day  or  hour,  not  even  the  angels  in  heaven,  not 
even  the  Son,  but  only  the  Father  (Mark  xiii.  32= 
Matt.  xxiv.  36).  This  correlation  of  the  Son  and 
the  Father  is  only  strange  when  it  is  isolated  from 
other  allusions  like — of  Him  shall  the  Son  of  man  be 
ashamed  when  He  com^  in  the  glory  of  His  Father 
(Mark  viii.  38).  The  conception  seems  to  belong  not 
only  to  the  primitive  gospel  tradition,  but  to  Jesus 
Himself.  So  difficult  in  fact  did  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  ignorance  on  the  part  of  Jesus  seem  to  some 
early  Christians  that  Luke,  who  elsewhere  reproduces 
sayings  of  Jesus  which  employ  Son,  Kar  i^oxv^,  ^^ 
this  connection  {e.g.  x.  22),  omits  the  present  saying, 
and  puts  a  smoother  version  of  it  into  the  lips  of 
the  risen  Christ  (Acts  i.  7  :  It  is  not  for  you  to  know 
the  times  or  seasons,  which  the  Father  has  kept  in  his 
own  power). 

Again,  the  consciousness  of  Sonship  reappears 
in  Matt.  xi.  25  f.  :  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  I 
praise  thee  that  while  thou  hast  concealed  these  things 
from  the  wise  and  shrewd,  thou  hast  revealed  them  to  the 
children.  Yea,  Father,  I  bless  thee  that  such  was  thy 
pleasure.  Jesus  is  thankful  that  the  true  knowledge 
of  Grod  is  not  a  monopoly  confined  to  experts  and 
exponents  of  the  Jewish  Torah,  but,  on  the  contrary, 

1  The  Fourth  gospel  twice  (i.  36,  xi.  4)  puts  the  title  on  his  lips. 
The  allusion  in  Matt,  xxvii.  43  {he  said,  I  am  Ood's  Son)  is  probably 
an  editorial  reference  to  Wisdom  ii.  18  {if  the  just  man  is  the  son 
oj  Ood,  he  will  help  him  and  deliver  him  from  the  hand  qf  hi* 
Ojpponents), 


134  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

that  it  is  open  to  the  unsophisticated  sons  of  men. 
It  is  from  another  point  of  view  that  Paul  argues 
(Rom.  ii.  17-20) :  You  bear  the  name  of  Jew,  you  rely 
on  the  Tor  ah,  you  boast  of  God  and  know  His  will,  you 
are  certain  that  you  are  a  light  for  those  who  are  in 
darkness,  a  teacher  of  children  (v>;7ri(oi/) !  The  apostle 
is  contrasting  the  inconsistent  Jew  with  the  moral 
pagan,  whereas  Jesus  is  primarily  contrasting  the 
professional  authorities  of  Judaism  with  the  humble 
and  despised  v^ttioi.  Primarily,  for  in  the  parable  of 
the  royal  banquet  which  the  original  guests  despised, 
the  ultimate  guests  are  drawn  from  outside  Judaism 
(Matt.  xxii.  8-9).  What  Jesus  emphasises  here, 
however,  is  the  accessibility  of  the  divine  revela- 
tion which  He  was  conscious  of  mediating  for  men. 
He  resented,  on  behalf  of  these  simple  children  of 
God,  the  elaborate  developments  of  Pentateuchal 
law  which  burdened  the  conscience  and  perplexed 
the  soul  (Matt,  xxiii.  4= Luke  xi.  46).  Only,  He  is 
not  merely  championing  their  rights,  as  if  He  admitted 
that  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  really  had  the  keys 
of  the  Father's  knowledge  and  kingdom.  He 
claims  for  Himself  the  supreme  authority  in  the 
sphere  of  divine  revelation.  The  hope  of  these 
defrauded  and  despised  vq-n-ioi  does  not  lie  in  any 
reform  upon  the  part  of  the  authorities  ;  it  lies  in 
His  own  commission  from  the  Father  to  reveal  the 
true  and  open  way  of  life  (see  above,  pp.  90  f.).  Con- 
sequently, in  the  consciousness  of  this  unique  rela- 
tion to  the  Father,  He  adds  :  Come  to  me,  all  who 
are  toiling  and  burdened,  and  I  (/cdyw,  emphatic)  unll 
refresh  you.  Take  on  you  (tliis  is  the  meaning  and 
purpose  of  come)  my  yoke  {i.e.  the  method  of  rehgion 
which  I  impose,  in  contrast  to  the  Pharisaic  yoke 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  135 

of  the  Torah)  and  learn  from  me,  for  I  am  meek  and 
lowly  in  heart — and  you  will  find  your  souls  refreshed. 
For  my  yoke  is  not  hard  to  hear,  my  burden  is  not  heavy. 
What  enabled  Him  to  confront  the  leHgious  needs 
of  men  with  serene  confidence  in  His  message  and 
mission,  was  the  conviction  that  He  possessed  a 
knowledge  of  God's  character  which  was  adequate 
to  the  situation.  He  knew  the  Father,  as  none  else 
did,  and  He  had  the  power  of  convejdng  this  know- 
ledge to  others  through  His  own  personaHty.^  It 
was  as  the  Son,  in  far  more  than  a  merely  messianic 
sense,  that  He  called  men  to  learn  the  open  secret 
of  His  religion. 

The  supernatural  position  of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of 
God  in  Mark's  narrative,  is  explained  by  the  birth- 
stories  of  Matthew  and  Luke  as  involving  an  absence  of 
human  paternity.  To  Mark  Jesus  is  practically  Son  of 
God  as  messiah,  who  is  invested  with  divine  authority 
(cf.  iii.  11),  though  it  is  improbable  that  the  evangehst 
regarded  Him  as  owing  His  divine  Sonship  to  the 
reception  of  the  messianic  spirit  at  baptism.  Whether 
the  words  Son  of  God  in  the  title  of  the  gospel  are 
authentic  or  not,  they  represent  correctly  the  stand- 
point of  the  evangehst.  Jesus  is  a  heavenly  being, 
sent  by  God  as  His  only  and  well-beloved  Son,  to 
accomplish  the  purpose  of  the  kingdom ;  ^  and  this 

1  The  Herodotean  saying  (ix.  16.  8)  ix^^'^'''V  ^^  68ivr]  ia-rl  tu>u  €v 
avdpdnroLcn  avrrj,  iroXXa  (f>poviovTa  /MTjdevbs  Kpar^eiv  afiFords  an 
interesting  contrast.  Matthew  puts  the  call  of  Jesus  to  men  im- 
mediately after  the  thanksgiving  for  the  Father's  revelation  to  him- 
self; it  is  the  latter  which  makes  the  former  possible.  Christ's 
knowledge  of  God  was  a  power  in  itself. 

2  On  the  authenticity  of  the  parable  in  xii.  1  f.  cf.  Professor 
Burkitt's  paper  in  Transactions  of  Third  International  Congress  for 
the  History  of  Religions,  ii.  pp.  321  f. 


136  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  rtBE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

is  what  lends  point  to  the  argument,  e.g.  of  xii.  35  f. 
(cf.  xiv.  61  f.),^  as  well  as  to  the  remark  wrung  from 
the  pagan  officer  at  the  cross,  Truly  this  man  was  a 
son  of  God.  The  evangehst  means  to  suggest  by  the 
latter  testimony  the  deeper  sense  of  the  title.  What 
imderlies  the  birth-stories,  again,  is  the  conception 
that  the  messianic  consciousness  of  sonship  is  based 
upon  a  special  consciousness  of  Sonship  to  the 
Father.  This  is  the  only  adequate  explanation  of 
the  deeper  sayings  of  Jesus  in  the  gospels  which  refer 
to  His  divine  Sonship,  and  the  development  which 
the  birth-stories  chronicle  is  organic  to  it.  They 
are  naive  attempts  to  express  the  Christian  sense  of 
what  was  implied  in  the  unique  fihal  consciousness  of 
Jesus,  and  even  in  groimding  the  latter  upon  a  basis 
which  Jesus  Himself  never  mentioned,  they  both 
witness  to  the  fact  (or  at  any  rate  to  the  conviction) 
that  His  Sonship  was  more  than  messianic.  Thus 
while  Luke  has  the  same  Isaianic  passage  as  Matthew 
in  his  mind  (i.  31),  he  prefers  to  present  the  virgin- 
birth  in  terms  more  intelligible  to  Christians  who 
were  familiar  with  the  mythology  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  world  ;  and  while  it  is  Jesus  the  messiah 
whose  birth  he  chronicles,  he  nevertheless  chronicles 
it  in  a  way  that  is  not  Jewish.  The  word  to  Mary 
is  :  The  Holy  Spirit  ivill  come  upon  thee,  and  the  power 
of  the  Most  High  will  overshadow  thee  :  therefore  shall 
the  holy  thing  which  is  to  be  born  be  called  God^s 
Son.  At  this  stage  ^  the  divine  Sonship  of  Jesus  is 
understood    as    an    essential    and    unique    relation 

1  Emphasised  in  Luke  xxii.  70-71. 

>  Later  on,  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin-birth  was  used  in  the  interests 
of  the  anti-docetic  propaganda  ;  but  there  is  no  trace  of  this  motive 
in  Matthew  or  in  Luke. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  137 

between  Him  and  God  which  is  His  from  birth.  The 
Sonship  is  still  connected  vitally  with  the  Holy 
Spirit,  though  it  is  associated  with  the  birth  of  Jesus, 
not  with  the  baptismal  experience.  The  tradition 
of  the  virgin-birth  therefore  embodies  an  apostohc 
interpretation  of  the  divine  Sonship  of  Jesus,  which 
imphes  what  a  modem  would  call  a  metaphysical 
relation  between  the  Father  and  the  Son.  It  is  not 
a  relationship  which  Jesus  ever  puts  forward  in 
His  teaching.  Even  the  gospels  which  open  with 
this  prologue  to  His  mission  never  represent  Him 
as  adducing  it  on  His  own  behalf ;  they  do  not, 
for  example,  refer  His  sinlessness  to  it.  The  value 
of  it,  theologically,  is  that  it  confirms  the  concep- 
tion of  the  divine  Sonship  which  is  presented  by  Q 
and  even  by  Mark.  It  is  a  developed  stage  of  the 
positive  tradition,  but  instead  of  denoting  the 
transmutation  of  an  originally  messianic  Sonship 
into  one  of  nature,  it  represents  a  more  realistic 
statement  of  the  latter.  It  is  not  inaccurate  to 
say  that  'nowhere,'  even  in  the  sjmoptic  tradition, 
'  do  we  find  that  Jesus  called  Himself  the  Son  of  God 
in  such  a  sense  as  to  suggest  a  merely  religious  and 
ethical  relation  to  God — a  relation  which  others 
also  actually  possessed,  or  which  they  were  capable 
of  attaining  or  destined  to  acquire.'  ^ 

The  theological  significance  of  the  birth-stories 
in  Matthew  and  Luke  is  conveyed  otherwise  by  the 
Fourth  gospel.  Here,  the  divine  Sonship  of  Jesus, 
as  the  only-begotten  Sou,  is  not  associated  vrith  His 
birth ;  His  incarnation  as  the  Logos  is  only  a  form 
of  that  eternal  Sonship  which  He  enjoyed  with  the 
Father  as  an  essential  relation  in  His  nature.      The 

1  Dalman,  Words  of  Jesus,  p.  287. 


138  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Son  (of  God)  is  not  simply  one  sent  by  God  into 
the  world  on  a  messianic  mission,  but  the  only-begotten 
(o  novoyevrjs),  who  is  specifically  related  to  the 
Father  as  a  divine  being  (i.  18),  akin  to  God  in 
nature  and  at  the  same  time  dependent  upon  Him. 
Among  the  sons  of  God  (i.  12,  cf.  x.  35)  He  is  the 
only-begotten  (i.  14,  18  ;  iii.  16,  18).  The  author  uses 
Son  of  God  as  a  higher  equivalent  for  the  Christ 
(xx.  31)  ;  the  phrase  is  appUed  chiefly  to  Jesus, 
whereas  He  applies  the  term  Son  specially  to  Him- 
self— a  conception  which  expands  the  thought  of 
Matt.  xi.  24= Luke  x.  22.  The  Johannine  use  of 
the  term,  therefore,  differs  in  two  essential  aspects 
from  the  Pauline.  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God  with 
power,  not  by  His  resurrection,  but  by  His  incarna- 
tion— an  advance  in  the  latter  idea  beyond  the 
synoptic  view.  Again,  the  pre-existence  of  Christ 
in  the  Fourth  gospel  is  more  definite  and  at  the 
same  time  more  inclusive  than  in  Paulinism.  It  is 
messianic,  but  more  than  messianic  ;  the  prologue 
connects  it  with  the  Logos,  and,  as  if  to  prevent  this 
being  confused  with  any  ideal  or  abstract  pre-exist- 
ence, the  pre-incamate  relation  of  Christ  and  God 
is  described  as  that  of  Son  and  Father.  After  the 
resurrection  the  Son  regains  the  position  which 
He  formerly  held  {e.g.  xvii.  5). 

In  the  conception  of  Son  of  man  ^  the  idea  of 
pre-existence  was  already  impHed,  but  it  is  not 
present  explicitly  in  the  synoptic  theology  ;  here 
as  elsewhere  (see  above,  pp.  26-27)  the  idea  remains  in 
the  backgroimd.  What  the  Fourth  gospel  does  is 
to  develop  a  thought  organic  to  the  synoptic  christ- 

1  Cf.  Fiebig's  Der  Menschensohn,  pp.  121  f.,  and  Titius,  Jesu,  Lehre 
vom  Reiche  Oottes,  pp.  118  f. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  139 

ology,  and  to  develop  it  specially  in  connection  with 
the  characteristic  doctrine  of  the  Logos  and  the 
divine  Sonship.  Thus — to  take  a  single  illustra- 
tion— ^it  is  the  supreme  function  of  the  Logos- 
Christ  to  disclose  the  real  Name  or  nature  of  God, 
wl^ch  He  Himself  knows  as  the  pre-existent  Son  ; 
but  this  disclosure  is  not  the  work  of  a  mere  mysta- 
gogue.  The  very  context  in  which  the  technical 
term  {l^-qyrjo-aTo)  ^  occurs,  indicates  the  atmosphere 
of  the  writer's  thought.  This  disclosure  is  the 
spontaneous  expression  of  God's  love  for  the  world  ; 
it  is  the  Son  who  brings  home  to  men  the  passion 
of  God's  heart  for  their  sonship,  not  simply  by  acting 
for  God,  but  by  mediating  the  real  Ufe  of  God  in 
His  own  person.  The  entire  process  of  the  incarna- 
tion, life,  death,  and  resurrection  of  Jesus  lies  within 
the  fatherly  love  of  God  for  men,  and  the  latter  is  re- 
vealed directly  in  and  through  the  mission  of  the  Son. 
(b)  A  similar  transcendence  of  the  messianic  rolt* 
is  furnished  by  the  place  of  the  Servant  of  Yahveh 
conception  in  the  consciousness  of  Jesus.  Li  the 
baptismal  voice  (see  above,  p.  132)  as  elsewhere,  the 
messianic  application  of  Isaiah  xlii.  f .  is  taken  up  into 
the  filial  consciousness  of  Jesus  as  consecrated  for  the 
work  of  the  Father  among  men.  There  was  a  partial 
anticipation  of  this  synthesis  in  Ps.  Solomon  xvii., 
and  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  even  the  original 
Servant-prophecy  was  not  quite  devoid  of  messianic 
traits.  The  older  messianic  conception  was  indeed 
transcended,  but  it  left  some  of  its  characteristic 
elements  in  the  higher  union,  and  the  Servant  retains, 
not  incongruously,  one  or  two  subordinate  features  of 
messiah  as  a  royal  conqueror.     '  It  was  natural  and 

1  John  i.  18. 


140  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

necessary  that  the  die,  from  which  the  coins  with 
the  royal  stamp  had  proceeded,  should  be  broken, 
the  royalistic  form  of  the  messianic  conception  having 
become  antiquated  with  the  hopeless  downfall  of 
the  kingdom  of  Judah  ;  but  equally  so  that  frag- 
ments of  the  die  should  be  gathered  up  and  fused 
with  other  elements  into  a  new  whole.'  ^  This 
formed  a  basis  for  that  synthesis  of  the  royal  divine 
Son  of  the  second  Psalm  and  the  Isaianic  Servant 
of  God  which  occurs  in  the  baptism-voice.  But  the 
most  distinctive  feature  in  the  use  which  Jesus 
made  of  the  Servant-prophecy  is  His  extension 
of  the  messianic  significance  to  the  prophecy  of  the 
suffering  Servant  in  Isaiah  Uii.  The  point  of  the 
latter  passage  is  that  the  extraordinary  change  in  the 
position  and  prospects  of  the  Servant  proves  a  revela- 
tion to  the  nations.  But  a  revelation  of  what  ?  Of 
the  fact  that  the  Servant's  suffering  was  due  to  their 
sins,  not  His  own,  and  that  it  led  to  their  heahng. 
The  remorseful  chorus  of  the  nations  cry  : — 

He  was  despised,  and  we  held  him  oj  no  account. 
But  he  bore  our  sicknesses, 

And  carried  our  sorrows, 
While  we  deemed  him  stricken, 

Smitten  by  God  and  afflicted. 
Yea,  for  our  transgressions  was  he  pierced, 

For  our  iniquities  was  he  bruised  : 
The  chastisement  that  brought  us  peace  fell  on  him, 

And  with  his  bruises  we  have  been  healed. 
We  had  all  strayed  like  sheep. 

We  had  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way  ; 
And  Yahveh  laid  on  him 

The  penalty  of  us  all. 

1  Cheyne,  The  Prophecies  of  Isaiah,  ii.  pp.  216-17. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  141 

Jewish  theology  had  aheady  felt  its  way  to  the 
truth  that  the  sufferings  and  death  of  the  righteous 
avail  to  atone  for  others.  It  was  partly  deduced 
from  this  great  Servant-passage  in  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah,  which  was  occasionally  inter- 
preted of  Moses,  on  the  strength  of  Exodus  xxxii.  32. 
It  was  also  connected  with  the  martyrs,  particu- 
larly after  the  Maccabean  struggle.  With  Jesus 
it  became  a  vehicle  of  the  truth  that  as  God's  Son, 
in  the  special  aspect  of  the  messianic  vocation,  He 
must  suffer  for  men  according  to  the  will  of  God. 
This  role  of  the  Christ  had  been  partially  anticipated 
by  the  Jewish  faith  which  voiced  itself  in  the  passages 
upon  the  Servant  of  Yahveh.  Whether  the  Servant 
was  originally  an  individual  or  Israel  personified, 
matters  very  httle  for  our  present  purpose.  It  was 
as  an  individual  that  he  was  conceived  by  Jesuci 
and  the  early  church,  and  it  is  in  this  fight  that  the 
sayings  of  the  gospels  are  to  be  interpreted.  Thus  we 
read  : — They  brought  him  many  who  were  possessed  by 
demons,  and  he  expelled  the  spirits  with  a  word  and 
healed  all  who  were  sick.  Here  the  evangefist  sees 
in  the  ministry  of  heafing  a  fulfilment  of  the  Servant 
of  Yahveh's  career :  Himself  he  took  {i.e.  took 
away)  our  sicknesses  and  bore  our  diseases  (Matt.  viii. 
16-17).  Or,  again,  as  we  read  in  the  Fourth  gospel, 
Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  who  takes  away  the  sin  of 
the  world.  The  Greek  term  {aipiav)  differs  from  that 
used  by  Matthew  to  translate  Isaiah  fiii.  4,  but  it 
means  practically  the  same  idea.  Once  again 
(in  Matt.  xii.  16  f.)  the  Servant-passages  are 
specifically  appUed  to  Jesus  ;  in  fact,  the  identifi- 
cation of  our  Lord  with  Yahveh's  Servant  is  one  of 
the  most  notable  features  in  the  primitive  apostoHc 
preaching,   especially  as  recorded  in  the  book  of 


142  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Acts.  It  was  to  the  fifty- third  chapter  of  Isaiah  that 
the  early  church,  prior  to  Paul,  had  gone  back  for  a 
proof  of  its  behef  that  Christ  died  for  our  sins.  This 
was  the  scripture,  and  the  significance  attached  to  it 
is  profoundly  suggestive.  But  a  critical  study  of  the 
gospels  proves  that  it  was  more  than  the  reflection 
of  the  early  church  upon  this  scripture.  There  is 
evidence  to  show  that  it  was  present  to  the  mind 
of  Jesus  Himself,  and  that  He  saw  in  the  character 
and  mission  of  the  suffering  Servant  anticipations 
of  His  own  career. 

According  to  the  Ebed  -  Yahveh  passages,  the 
ideal  community  or  Servant  undergoes  a  purifjdng 
disciphne  of  suffering  which  fits  it  to  carry  out 
Yahveh's  redeeming  purpose  for  the  world.  The 
Servant  undergoes  humihation  and  agony,  but  his 
mission  is  glorious  and  his  sufferings  are  vicarious. 

Now  (i)  it  is  when  this  element  of  vicarious  suffer- 
ing, in  the  Servant  -  conception,  is  adequately 
estimated,  that  the  basis  e.g.  for  the  drastic  eschato- 
logical  view  begins  to  give  way,  Jesus,  we  are  some- 
times told  {e.g.  by  J.  Weiss,  Die  Predigt  Jesu  vom 
Reiche  Gottes,  pp.  238  f.),  began  by  attempting  to 
create  penitence  throughout  the  nation,  and  thereby 
to  prepare  the  people  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom. 
But  '  convinced  that  the  kingdom  could  not  come, 
on  account  of  the  inadequate  penitence  which  His 
preaching  had  evoked,  He  finally  determined  that 
His  own  death  must  be  the  ransom-price.'  The 
consciousness  of  this  need,  however,  in  the  light  of 
the  Servant-prophecy,  was  not  an  after-thought.  It 
must  have  been  present  to  His  mind  more  or  less 
definitely  from  the  first. 

(ii)  Again,  it  throws  light  on  the  truth  that  the  death 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  143 

of  Jesus  was  a  free  gift  to  men,  and  that  He  viewed  it 
as  a  voluntary  sacrifice  for  their  sake.  This  con- 
ception underlies  the  language  of  the  acted  parable 
which  we  call  the  Lord's  Supper,  when  He  took 
the  bread  and  the  cup,  representing  His  personaUty, 
as  dedicated  to  death,  and  gave  them  to  the  disciples. 
The  Son  of  man,  he  had  just  said,  goes  away  as  it 
has  been  written  of  him — meaning  that  the  Son  of 
man  was  to  fulfil  the  mysterious  prophecy  of  the 
Servant  of  Yahveh  who  had  to  disappear  from  the 
earth  by  a  death  of  violence,  only  to  return  in 
triumph  for  the  accompUshment  of  God's  saving 
purpose.  Jesus  freely  yields  Himself  to  this  divine 
plan  for  the  world.  The  Fourth  gospel,  in  its  own 
way,  reproduces  this  conception  (x.  17  f.),  but  it  is 
present  in  germ  within  the  earher  sjmoptic  tradi- 
tion, where  the  Christian  is  called  upon  to  be  ready, 
if  need  be,  to  lose  his  life  for  the  cause,  while  Jesus 
gives  His.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  the  Lord  to  give 
His  fife  for  the  sake  of  His  people.  This  thought 
is  presented  in  a  twofold  antithesis,  in  contrast  to 
the  selfish  craving  for  Hfe  which  might  tempt  Him 
to  spare  Himself  the  cost,  and  in  contrast  to  the  idea 
that  His  death  was  forced  upon  Him  involuntarily. 
The  former  is  sjnioptic,  the  latter  Johannine,  but 
the  former  also  enters  into  the  Johannine  conception, 
(iii)  Furthermore,  in  the  remonstrance  of  John 
the  Baptist  and  the  reply  of  Jesus,  as  recorded  by 
Matthew  (iii.  15),  while  we  can  hear  the  difficulty 
felt  by  the  early  church  about  the  baptism  of  the 
sinless  Son  of  God,  the  very  answer  is  significant,  as 
compared  with  that  of  the  gospel  of  the  Hebrews. 
When  Jesus  replies,  it  behoves  us  to  fulfil  all  righteous- 
nesSj  He  is  identifying  Himself  with  the  people  for 


144  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

whom  He  came  to  live  and  labour.  It  is  most  pro- 
bable that  the  underljang  idea  of  the  phrase  is  the 
consecration  of  the  righteous  Son  and  Servant  to 
(Grod's  interests  among  a  faulty  and  perverse  genera- 
tion. 

(iv)  Once  more,  it  is  important  to  recollect  that 
the  horizon  of  the  Servant-behef  is  the  world,  not 
Israel.  The  Servant  stands  plainly  between 
Yahveh  and  the  nations,  with  a  commission  from 
the  former  to  the  latter.  He  shall  announce  justice 
{i.e.  true  reUgion)  to  the  nations  .  .  .  and  in  His  name 
the  nations  shall  trust.  This  is  definitely  appUed  to 
Jesus  by  Matthew  (xii.  18,  21),  just  as  Luke  (ii.  32) 
sees  in  Him  the  fulfilment  of  the  Servant-promise, 
/  ivill  set  thee  for  a  light  to  the  nations.  The  universal 
range  which  is  impHcit  in  the  message  of  Jesus  goes 
back  to  this  element  in  the  conception  of  the  Servant. 
But  it  may  be  illustrated  from  another  side.  It  is 
prosaic  and  unreal  to  suppose  that  when  a  word 
of  the  Old  Testament  leapt  to  the  mind  and  hps  of 
Jesus,  He  was  conscious  of  its  context.  But  some 
passages  were  plainly  wells  of  revelation  for  Him, 
and  since  the  narrative  of  the  baptism  proves  that 
the  second  Psalm  was  one  of  these  at  this  period,  it 
is  more  than  possible  that  He  had  brooded  over  not 
only  the  divine  assurance — Thou  art  my  Son,  this 
day  have  I  begotten  thee — but  the  divine  promise, 
which  immediately  follows — Ask  of  me,  and  I  will 
give  thee  the  heathen  for  thine  inheritance,  and  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  for  thy  possession.  This, 
at  any  rate,  formed  the  ground  of  one  of  the  subse- 
quent temptations,  and  it  throws  some  light  upon 
the  range  of  His  consciousness  and  vocation. 

(v)  Finally  and  fundamentally,  it  is  in  the  light 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  145 

of  the  Servant- prophecy  in  Isaiah  hii.  that  we  ought  to 
read  the  ransom-saying  of  Matt.  xx.  28= Mark  x.  45  : 
The  Son  of  man  has  not  come  to  he  ministered  tq^  hut 
to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a  ransom  for  many. 
The  first  part  of  the  saying  is  the  chmax  of  the 
preceding  argument  that  greatness  in  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  measured  by  service,  and  that  this  prin- 
ciple apphes  to  the  Son  of  man  who  inaugurates 
the  kingdom,  as  well  as  to  its  members.  The  second 
part  imphes  that  the  messianic  vocation  for  Jesus 
involved  not  only  a  career  of  humble  service  but  a 
service  which  culminated  in  death — and  in  death, 
not  as  a  catastrophe,  but  as  a  source  of  eternal 
profit  to  many.  The  problem  is  to  ascertain  why 
and  how  the  death  of  Jesus  should  produce  this  effect. 
In  Isaiah  hii.,  as  we  have  seen,  the  extraordinary 
impression  and  influence  of  the  Servant's  death  ^ 
upon  the  outside  world  is  left  unexplained,  and  at  first 
sight  it  seems  as  if  this  were  also  the  case  in  the 
synoptic  passage.  The  term  ransom  (Xvrpov)  is 
never  used  elsewhere  by  Jesus.  He  does  not  add  any 
explanation  of  it  here,  and  it  has  been  attributed 
naturally  by  some  critics  to  the  influence  of  Pauhn- 
ism.  But  the  term  is  not  Pauhne,  and  the  authen- 
ticity as  well  as  the  present  position  of  the  saying  can 
be  estabhshed  if  the  context  is  broadly  interpreted.^ 

1  In  Matthew's  version  of  the  voice  at  the  Transfiguration  (xvii.  5) 
the  words  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased,  or  on  whom  I  have  set  my  seal 
of  approval,  or  on  whom  I  have  fixed  my  choice,  are  repeated  from  the 
baptism-story.  They  imply  the  Servant-prophecy  (cf.  Mark  i.  11  = 
Isa.  xlii.  1-4 ;  Matt.  xii.  18-21). 

2  See  on  this  point  Professor  E,  F.  Scott's  The  Kingdom  and  the 
Messiah,  pp.  230  f.  ;  Professor  Denney's  Death  of  Christ,  pp.  34  f.  ; 
Titius,  Jesu  Lehre  vom  Reiche  Oottes,  pp.  147  f.  ;  and  Earth's  Haupt- 
prdbleme  des  Lebens  Jesu^  (1907),  pp.  199  f. 

K 


146  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

An  appreciation  of  the  Marcan  logion  involves  pro- 
bably the  admission  of  some  element  of  truth  in  the 
view  which  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott  has  stated,^  viz.  that  the 
sjnioptic  references  to  Jesus  being  delivered  up  mean 
not  betrayal  but  the  deeper  deUvering  up  of  His  Hfe 
to  be  an  intercessory  sacrifice  for  sinners,  as  in  the 
Servant-prophecy  of  Isaiah  Uii.  12.  There  is  reason  to 
beUeve  that  Jesus  Himself  thus  predicted  His  death  as 
a  vicarious  sacrifice.  He  was  to  suffer  many  things 
and  he  rejected,  hke  the  Servant ;  like  him  also,  He  was 
to  be  delivered  up  (LXX  of  Isa.  Hii.  12)  for  the  trans- 
gressors. It  is  not  necessary  to  complicate  the  argu- 
ment by  supposing  that  the  last  three  words  were 
part  of  the  original  prediction  of  Jesus,  but  the  data 
substantially  support  Dr.  Abbott's  general  thesis. 
For  our  present  purpose,  this  is  important  on  account 
of  the  hght  which  it  throws  upon  the  bearings  of  an 
apparently  isolated  word  Hke  that  about  the  ransom. 
We  obtain  a  valuable  hint  as  to  the  context  of  such 
a  saying,  and  this  view  of  the  statement  about  being 
delivered  up  corroborates  the  impression  that  the 
thought  of  His  death  as  a  vicarious  sacrifice  was  not 
foreign  to  the  mind  of  Jesus,  and  that  the  back- 
ground of  the  thought  was  really  furnished  by  the 
Servant-prophecy  in  relation  to  His  own  deeper  view 
of  the  messianic  vocation.  We  may  note  in  passing 
that  another  indirect  trace  of  this  circle  of  ideas  is 
furnished  by  the  earher  saying,  what  shall  a  man  give 
as  an  equivalent  for  his  life  ?  (avraAAay/ia  ttJs  '/'vx'')? 
auTov,  Matt.  xvi.  26==  Mark  viii.  37).  Here  selfish 
indulgence  is  pronounced  the  ruin  of  life,  while  real 
life  is  to  identify  oneself  at  all  costs  with  the  interests 
of  Jesus  and  the  gospel.  Besides,  the  metaphor  of 
i  Jn  Faradosis  (1904),  pp.  3  f. ;  cf.  The  Son  of  Man  (1910),  3254  f. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  147 

ransoming  is  used,  as  already  in  Ps.  xlix.  8  f.,^  for 
regaining  or  securing  life  when  it  is  in  imminent 
danger  of  death. 

The  kingdom  which  as  Son  of  man  He  thus  came 
to  estabhsh  meant  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  eternal 
life ;  both  of  these  boons  had  to  be  reaHsed  in  face 
of  the  evil  order  of  the  present  age  which  held  men 
down  under  the  forces  of  the  Evil  One.  When  Jesus 
therefore  speaks  of  giving  His  hfe  as  a  ransom  for 
the  common  good  of  men,  He  is  thinking  of  some- 
thing deeper  than  securing  by  His  death  the  immunity 
of  the  disciples  from  danger,^  or  dedicating  His  hfe 
to  an  expenditure  of  pain  and  sympathy  with  man- 
kind which  meant  a  continuous  costly  effort,^  or  doing 
for  men  what  any  member  of  the  human  race  could  do, 
i.e.  sacrificing  Himself  for  their  sakes.*  The  phrase 
certainly  expresses  what  Jesus  meant  when  He 
spoke  of  saving  the  lost,  but  this  involved  for  Him 
a  unique  function  as  the  Son  of  man  who  by  His 
death  was  to  complete  the  divine  purpose  which 
He  had  come  to  fulfil.  Set  in  this  fight,  the 
sajdng  seems  finked  to  the  preceding  words, 
instead  of  forming,  as  some  contend,  an  incongruous 
pendant.     He  had  just  told  James  and  John  that 

1  The  thought  of  Job  xxxiii.  24  is  even  closer,  in  some  ways,  as 
it  suggests  the  connection  of  sin  and  death  (cf.  Enoch  xcviii,  10, 
4  Mace.  xvii.  21  f.). 

2  Schmiedel  in  Encyclopcedia  Biblica,  1887. 

*  Abbott  {ibid.,  3271):  'The  effort  might  in  some  sense  be  called 
a  "ransom."  It  was  already,  so  to  speak,  an  expenditure,  drop  by 
drop,  of  His  life-blood,  to  be  summed  up  in  the  pouring  forth  of  His 
soul  on  the  Cross.' 

*  This  is  only  possible  if,  with  0.  Holtzmann  {Life  of  Jestu, 
p.  167  f.),  Son  of  man  is  taken  here,  and  in  Luke  xix.  10,  in  a 
generic  sense. 


148  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

it  was  not  for  Him  ^  to  assign  {Bovvai)  positions 
of  privilege  in  the  kingdom,  and  had  followed 
up  this  by  adding  that  any  one  who  wished  to 
be  chief  among  them  was  to  be  the  servant  of  all. 
He  now  declares  that  the  Son  of  man,  who  heads 
the  kingdom  of  God,  occupies  that  position  by  His 
service  of  men,  and  that  He  can  and  will  give  (Sovvai) 
His  life  to  secure  theirs. 

From  this  it  is  a  straight  line  to  the  confession 
of  the  Te  Deum,  '  When  thou  hadst  overcome  the 
sharpness  of  death,  thou  didst  open  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  to  all  beUevers.'  But  historically  rather 
than  theologically,  the  saying  is  illuminated  by  the 
previous  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament.  '  To 
understand  Him  it  is  sufficient  to  remember  that 
the  redemptive  value  of  the  sufferings  of  the  righteous, 
an  atonement  made  for  sin  not  through  material 
sacrifice  but  in  the  obedience  and  spiritual  agony 
of  an  ethical  agent,  was  one  idea  familiar  to  prophecy. 
It  is  enough  to  be  sure,  as  we  can  be  sure,  that  He 
whose  grasp  of  the  truths  of  the  Old  Testament 
excelled  that  of  His  predecessors,  did  not  apply 
this  particular  truth  to  Himself  in  a  vaguer  way,  and 
understand  by  it  less,  than  they  did.  His  people's 
pardon,  His  people's  purity — foretold  as  the  work 
of  a  righteous  hfe,  a  perfect  service  of  God,  a  wilhng 

1  Luke,  who  omits  the  ransom-saying  as  well  as  the  logion  of 
Matt.  xvi.  26  =  Mark  viii.  37 — the  former,  because  he  omits  the  whole 
passage  about  the  son  of  Zebedee  which  led  up  to  it — reproduces  the 
thought  of  humble  serrice  in  connection  with  the  Last  Supper  (xxii. 
24  f. ),  and  inserts  a  saying  (xxii.  29  f.)  which  makes  Jesus  promise 
what  he  declines  to  promise  to  the  sons  of  Zebedee.  Luke's  concep- 
tion of  redemption  is  narrower  than  that  of  Jesus  (cf.  i.  68,  ii.  38, 
xxi.  28,  xxiv.  21) ;  he  also  avoids  referring  to  the  ypvxv  of  Jesus 
(cf.  the  omissions  here  and  in  xxii.  40,  with  the  significant  change 
ip  Acts  ii,  27,  31).  • 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  149 

self-sacrifice — He  now  accepted  as  His  own  work, 
and  for  it  He  ofi^ered  His  life  and  submitted  to  death. 
The  ideas,  as  we  have  seen,  were  not  new  ;  the  new 
thing  was  that  He  felt  they  were  to  be  fulfilled  in 
His  person  and  through  His  passion.'  ^ 

It  is  thus  plain  that  the  suffering  Servant  concep- 
tion was  organic  to  the  consciousness  of  Jesus,  and 
that  He  often  regarded  His  vocation  in  the  light  of 
this  supremely  suggestive  prophecy.  It  is  the  bap- 
tism voice  which  marks  the  earhest  token  of  this 
attitude  upon  the  part  of  Jesus.  It  may  indeed 
appear  to  some  that  there  is  nothing  particularly 
notable,  and  perhaps  something  rather  artificial, 
in  the  mere  combination  of  two  different  sayings 
from  the  Old  Testament.  But  the  facts  are  other- 
wise. The  perception  of  a  Jink  between  such 
sayings,  the  insight  which  penetrates  to  the  un- 
suspected unity  behind  both,  may  be  truly  epoch- 
making.  If  it  was  '  a  brilliant  flash  of  the  highest 
rehgious  genius '  ^  to  combine  Deuteronomy  vi.  4-5 
with  Leviticus  xix.  18,  uniting  the  love  of  God  with 
the  love  of  man,  surely  it  was  not  less  when  Jesus 
recognised  in  His  own  character  and  career  the  union 
of  the  Isaianic  Servant  of  Yahveh  ^  and  the  messianic 
royal  son  of  the  second  Psalm  ?  Such  combinations 
are  not  the  cool  and  clever  result  of  a  scribe  poring 
over  the  Old  Testament  texts.  They  witness  to  a 
depth  of  rehgious  insight  and  experience  which  is 
creative.     They  interpret  not  texts  but  a  Life. 

1  Dr.  G.  A.  Smith,  Jerusalem,  ii.  547-8. 

2  Montefiore  in  the  Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  iii.  p.  658. 

*  See  above,  p,132.  But  this  does  not  imply  that  the  synoptic  Son 
is  a  mistranslation  of  the  Isaianic  Servant,  owing  to  the  ambiguity  of 
Trais  (Abbott,  Froin  Letter  to  Spirit,  805  ff. ). 


150  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

(c)  The  allied  conception  of  the  Son  of  man  also 
serves  to  bring  out  the  significance  of  the  Servant- 
prophecy  for  Jesus.  It  is  not  a  title  to  be  isolated. 
'  The  "  Father  in  heaven,"  the  "  kingdom  of  God," 
and  "  the  Son  of  man,"  form  a  trinity  of  ideas  which 
have  developed  organically  to  the  reHgious  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus,  and  which  are  reciprocally  to 
be  defined  and  understood  ;  in  them  His  preaching 
has  reached  its  chmax.'  *  What  the  Son  of  man 
specially  emphasises  is  the  divine  mission  of  Jesus 
in  connection  with  the  messianic  kingdom.  He  seems 
to  have  preferred  this  title  to  that  of  '  messiah '  ;  ^ 
it  is  used  comparatively  freely,  and  apparently 
without  any  indication  that  it  was  unintelligible. 
At  the  same  time,  it  is  an  open  question  whether  it 
was  used  invariably  with-  a  messianic  connotation, 
and  how  far  Jesus  attached  a  special  nuance  to  it. 

The  first  open  admission  of  His  messianic  voca- 
tion (Matt.  xvi.  13,  21  f.=Mark  viii.  27,  31  f.,  cf.  Luke 
ix.  18,  22  f.),  is  connected  with  this  term. 

Who  do  men  say  that  /,        Who  do  men  say  that  I 
the  Son  of  man,  am  ?  am  ? 

Here  Matthew  inserts  7,^  taking  Son  of  man  as 
an  equivalent  for  the  first  personal  pronoun  on  the 
lips  of  Jesus,  and  this  may  represent  the  origin  of 
the  title  in  some  of  the  synoptic  passages.*  Matthew 
also  appears  to  correlate  the  Son  of  man  and  the  Son 
of  God  (ver.  16)  in  this  passage,  as  terms  for  the 

1  Holtzmann,  Das  messianische  Bewusstsein  Jesu,  p.  54. 

2  Or  to  '  Son  of  David. '     '  Son  of  man  '  had  this  advantage,  that  it 
was  free  or  capable  of  being  freed  from  particularistic  limitations. 

3  By  some  early  authorities  /xe  is  omitted,  but  the  omission,  even 
if  better  supported,  would  hardly  alter  the  sense. 

*  E.a.  in  Luke  vi.  22. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  151 

human  and  divine  aspects  of  the  mysterious  person- 
aUty  of  Jesus,  but  the  important  feature  of  the  saying 
is  the  explicit  subsequent  avowal  of  the  messianic 
calling  in  terms  of  the  Son  of  man  conception. 

This  raises  the  further  question,  whether  the  prior 
references  to  Son  of  man  are  misplaced,  or  equivalent 
to  a  non-messianic  title. 

In  the  story  of  Jesus  curing  the  paralytic 
man  (Mark  ii.  1  f.=Matt.  ix.  1-8= Luke  v.  18  f.), 
the  closing  words  of  Matthew  about  the  crowd 
glorifying  God  who  had  given  such  power  to  men, 
have  naturally  suggested  that  originally  Jesus  said, 
m£in  (not,  the  Son  of  mun)  has  power  on  earth  to 
forgive  sins.  This,  it  is  argued,  was  the  sense  of  the 
Aramaic.  Jesus  meant  no  more  than  to  assert  that 
if  to  err  was  human,  to  forgive  was  human  as  well 
as  divine  ;  He  claims  that  man,  in  virtue  of  his  true 
humanity,  can  forgive  sins.  This  is  plausible,  but 
not,  I  think,  adequate  to  the  context  of  the  saying. 
The  point  of  the  story  is  blunted  if  the  cUmax  is 
reached  in  a  statement  that  man,  no  less  than 
God,  has  the  right  to  forgive  sins.  The  cure  which 
follows  and  cKnches  the  declaration  of  forgiveness 
is  the  outcome  of  the  divine  or  quasi-messianic 
functions  claimed  by  Jesus  as  bar-nascha,  and,  unless 
the  story  is  arbitrarily  dissected.  His  right  to  forgive 
and  His  power  of  deahng  with  disease  are  to  be  taken 
as  co-ordinate  elements  of  His  personaUty.  The 
issue  between  Jesus  and  His  critics  is  not  the  pre- 
rogatives of  man,  but  the  specific  power  of  God  which 
operates  through  Jesus  as  Son  of  man}    The  f  orgive- 

1  So  e.g.  DalmaD,  Fiebig,  Loisy,  Denney,  and  Montefiore ;  also 
Wrede  (Zeitschrift  fur  die  neutestamentliche  Wissenscha/i  (1904)^ 
p.  355  f.),  though  he  had  previously  taken  the  opposite  view. 


152  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

ness  of  sins  was  not  directly  assigned  to  messiah  by 
the  Jews,  so  far  as  our  extant  sources  permit  us  to 
judge,  but  it  was  one  of  the  privileges  of  the  new  era,^ 
and  as  the  representative  of  God,  who  inaugurates 
as  well  as  announces  that  new  era,  Jesus  assumes 
the  right  of  conferring  the  boon. 

It  is  more  plausible  to  suppose  that  in  the  next 
saying,  The  Son  of  man  is  Lord  even  of  the  sabbath 
(Mark  ii.  28=Matt.  xii.  8,  Luke  vi.  5),  we  have  a  mes- 
sianic expansion  of  what  originally  was  a  claim  for 
human  rights  as  opposed  to  the  Sabbatarian  rigour 
of  the  Jewish  law.  But  even  this  is  not  a  necessary 
inference.  Matthew  leads  up  to  the  saying  by  a 
passage  of  his  own  (verses  5-7),  from  Q  or  elsewhere, 
which  ranks  Jesus  higher  than  the  temple.  Mark 
reaches  the  same  end  by  saying,  the  sabbath  vms 
rtiade  for  man,  not  mxin  for  the  sabbath.  Luke  argues 
directly  from  the  precedent  of  David  to  the  authority 
of  the  Son  of  man.  But  if  the  Son  of  man  is  accepted 
as  authentic  in  the  earher  passage,  there  is  a  proba- 
bility that  it  was  original  here.  Besides,  the  con- 
nection is  good.  Jesus  vindicates  the  right  of  the 
disciples  because  they  are  '  His  '  disciples  ;  as  Son  of 
man  He  claims  to  set  aside  the  later  elaboration  of  the 
sabbath-law  which  encroached  upon  human  needs. 
What  David  could  do  for  his  followers.  He,  the  Son 
of  man,  can  do  for  His  disciples.  Had  the  original 
Aramaic  simply  meant  '  man '  in  both  sentences  of 
Mark,  it  would  have  been  translated  as  such  uniformly, 
and,  besides,  Jesus  would  not  have  claimed  that  man 
was  master  of  the  sabbath  which  God  had  instituted.^ 

1  Cf.  Jer.  xxxi.  34,  Ezek.  xxxvii.  23,  Isa.  xxxiii.  24  (and  the 
inhabitant  shall  not  say,  I  am  sick :  the  people  that  dwell  therein 
shall  he  forgiven  their  iniquity). 

2  Cf.  Loisy.  Les  Evangiles  Synoptiques,  i.  512. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  153 

From  the  historical  point  of  view,  it  therefore 
remains  an  open  question  whether  these  two  refer- 
ences, prior  to  Csesarea  Phihppi,  are  not  antedated. 
From  the  theological  point  of  view,  the  decision  is 
of  subordinate  importance,  once  it  is  admitted  that 
Son  of  nmn  in  both  passages  is  neither  generic  nor 
a  colourless  self- designation. 

The  messianic  connotation  of  the  title,  on  the  hps 
of  Jesus,  includes  humanity  and  apocalyptic  triumph 
in  the  future.  It  expressed,  as  one  critic  has  said, 
'  the  messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus  in  three  dis- 
tinct directions.  It  announced  a  messiah  appointed 
to  suffer,  richly  endowed  with  human  sympathy,  and 
destined  to  pass  through  suffering  to  glory.'  ^  All 
theories  that  Jesus  used  it  to  denote  some  one  other 
than  Himself — some  future  agent  of  God — or  that 
it  merely  expressed  His  consciousness  of  personal 
humanity,  may  be  set  aside  without  hesitation. 
There  is  an  unequivocal  class  of  authentic  logia  where 
it  cannot  possibly  represent  '  man,'  e.g,,  the  Son  of 
man  has  nowhere  to  lay  his  head  (Matt.  viii.  20— 
Luke  ix.  58),  the  Son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking 
(Matt.  xi.  19= Luke  vii.  34),  and  Judas,  betray  the 
Son  of  man  with  a  kiss  !  (Luke  xxii.  48).  Both  of 
the  former  probably  belong  to  Q,  and  in  the  second 
the  term  '  man  '  hes  near  {and  they  say,  here  is  a  man 
fond  of  eating  and  drinking).  This  suggests  a  doubt 
about  the  assertion  that  Aramaic  had  no  means  of 
distinguishing  between  '  man  '  and  '  Son  of  man,' — 
a  doubt  which  is  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  when 
Daniel  was  read  and  translated  in  the  synagogues, 
it  must  have  been  possible  to  feel  that  the  Greek 
term  *  like  a  son  of  man '  represented  something 

1  Bruce,  The  Kingdom  of  God,  pp.  176  f. 


154  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

different  from  what  was  meant  by  the  ordinary 
Aramaic  bar-nascha.  By  the  tone  of  His  voice,  by 
the  very  context  in  which  the  term  was  used,  Jesus 
could  have  cpnveyed  to  His  hearers  the  special 
significance  which  the  relevant  Greek  sajdngs  of 
the  tradition  imply.  The  latter  do  not  allow  us 
to  interpret  the  Son  of  man  invariably  as  merely  a 
generic  term  for  man,  or  an  equivalent  for  '  some- 
body,' or  for  'I.'  'I  doubt,'  says  Wellhausen, 
'  whether  the  term  "  Son  of  man  "  first  acquired  its 
messianic  significance  in  Greek,  although  it  was 
easier  in  Greek  than  in  Aramaic  to  distinguish  it 
from  "  man."  .  .  .  The  Jerusalemite  Christians 
would  already  distinguish  between  the  specific  and  the 
generic  "  barnascha."  '  ^  If  they  could,  Jesus  could. 
The  messianic  connotation  of  '  bar-nascha,'  which  is 
denied  on  hnguistic  grounds  by  some  scholars,  is 
rendered  more  than  probable  by  an  exegesis  of  the 
synoptic  data,  which  do  not  permit  an  exclusive 
reference  of  the  term  in  its  messianic  sense  to  the 
later  theology  of  the  Church.  If  it  was  easier 
to  distinguish  the  term  '  man '  in  Greek  than  in 
Aramaic,  it  was  still  easier  to  make  such  a  distinc- 
tion and  emphasis  in  oral  than  in  written  Aramaic, 
and  the  procedure  of  the  Jerusalemite  Christians 
is  unintelHgible,  unless  Jesus  had  already  given  a 
hint  of  the  special  meaning  which  He  attached 
to  the  term  as  a  designation  of  His  own  messianic 
personahty. 

It  is  not  by  accident  that  Son  of  man  never  occurs 
in  the  narrative  of  the  gospels.  The  careful  avoid- 
ance of  the  term  in  such  passages  ^  is  an  indication 

1  Einleitung  in  die  drei  ersten  Evangdien  ',  p.  130. 

*  Even  though  the  Lord  is  used,  e.g.,  by  Luke  as  well  as  John. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  155 

that  the  evangehsts  did  not  read  back  the  concep- 
tion right  and  left  into  the  tradition  of  Jesus.  It  is 
unHkely  that  the  original  apocalyptic  use  of  the  term 
led  them  to  extend  it  to  other  passages  as  a  seK- 
designation  of  Jesus,  for  there  is  no  obvious  reason 
why  it  was  only  extended  to  some  passages,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  it  has  an  apt  significance  in  nearly 
all.  The  Son  of  man,  as  a  present  and  as  a  future 
designation,  corresponds  to  the  double  sense  in 
which  the  kingdom  of  God  appears  in  the  tradition  ; 
it  is  a  title  closely  associated  with  the  divine  realm, 
of  which  the  Son  of  man  is  the  founder  and  herald. 
The  organic  connection  between  the  two  justifies 
us  in  retaining  the  term  in  the  synoptic  logia 
which  is  un-apocalyptic,  as  well  as  in  believing 
that  it  had  an  eschatological  significance  for  Jesus 
Himself, 

The  critical  alternatives  are  (a)  to  ehminate  from 
the  title  any  messianic  content,  or  (b)  admitting  such 
a  content,  to  eliminate  the  title  from  the  teaching 
of  Jesus,  and  to  regard  it  as  a  catchword  of  the 
apostolic  age  (so  especially.  Bacon  and — on  other 
grounds — Brandt,  Die  Evangelische  Geschichte,  pp. 
562  f.),  or  (c)  to  take  it  as  a  title  which  Jesus  used, 
half  to  reveal  and  half  to  conceal  the  significance 
of  His  personaHty,  an  indefinite  expression  which, 
partly  owing  to  its  earlier  history  and  partly  to 
the  larger  synthesis  in  which  He  set  it,  meant 
more  than  a  merely  messianic  function.  Neither 
(a)  nor  (6)  will  cover  a,ll  the  data.  When  the  Son 
of  man  passages  are  turned  back  into  the  original 
Aramaic  vernacular,  the  generic  sense  of  the  term 
more  than  once  proves  jejune  or  unnatural,  and  any 
other    sense    fails    on    the    whole    to    satisfy    the 


166  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS  [ch. 

context.  Again,  in  view  of  the  appearance  of  the 
term  in  a  messianic  sense  in  the  early  source  of 
Acts  vii.  56,  it  is  difficult  to  date  its  rise  after  Paul's 
death  or  to  find  the  avenue  for  its  introduction  into 
the  synoptic  tradition  in  Q  or  the  small  Apocalypse. 
The  conclusions  of  Lietzmann  and  Wellhausen  are 
not  so  final  that  we  need  to  be  intimidated  by  them 
into  a  rejection  of  the  term  upon  linguistic  grounds, 
as  used  by  Jesus  in  a  special  sense,  even  though  the 
extant  references  may  not  always  bear  the  precise 
weight  which  the  evangelists  attach  to  them.  An 
examination  of  the  synoptic  data  seriatim  vindi- 
cates the  hypothesis  that  Jesus  called  Himself  '  Son 
of  man,'  and  that  the  significance  of  this  self-desig- 
nation is  to  be  found  not  simply  in  the  apocalyptic 
tradition,  as  a  title  for  the  future  functions  of  the 
Christ,  but  in  the  larger  sphere  of  His  conscious- 
ness as  expressed  particularly  through  the  Servant 
of  Yahveh  prophecies. 

The  presence — one  might  almost  say  the  predomin- 
ance— of  the  Danielle  Son  of  man  is  evident  not  only 
in  sayings  which,  in  their  present  form  at  any  rate, 
bear  the  stamp  of  the  apostolic  Church,  but  in  others 
which  were  certainly  spoken  by  Jesus  Himself.  A 
fair  example  of  the  former  class  may  be  found  in  the 
closing  paragraph  of  Matthew's  gospel  (xxviii.  18  f.), 
where  the  phrase,  all  power  (authority)  is  given  to  me 
in  heaven  and  on  earth,  is  an  echo  of  the  Danielle 
prediction  that  there  was  given  him  {i.e.  the  Son 
of  man)  dominion  and  glory  and  a  kingdom.^  The 
leading  example  of  the  latter  class  of  sayings  is  the 

1  This  symbolic  application  of  a  highly  symbolic  prediction  suggests 
that  the  reply  of  Jesug  to  the  high  priest,  which  is  couched  in  terms 
of  the  same  prediction,  contains  a  figurative  element. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  157 

crucial  reply  of  Jesus  to  the  high  priest  and  his 
colleagues  : — 

Mark  xiv.  62.  Matt.  xxvi.  64.  Luke  xxii.  69. 

Tou  will  see  the  Son  You  will  see  the  Son  The  Son  of  man 

of  man  sitting  at        of  man  sitting  at  will  he  seated 

the  right   hand   of        the  right   hand  of  at     the     right 

the      Power      and        the      Power     and  hand     of     the 

coming      on      the        coming    with    the  Power  of  God, 
clouds  of  heaven.            clouds  of  heaven. 

The  ttTr'  apTL  with  which  Matthew,  and  the  dirh 
TOU  vvv  with  which  Luke,  introduces  the  saying, 
may  be  glosses ;  Luke's  suppression  of  the  predic- 
tions about  messiah  coming  on  the  clouds  (which, 
however,  he  reproduces  later  in  Acts  i.  9-11)  and 
being  seen  by  His  former  judges,  reflects  at  any  rate 
the  theology  of  an  age  which  had  outlived  the  first 
generation.  Jesus  is  condemned  not  for  claiming 
to  be  the  Son  of  man,  but  for  admitting  that  He  was 
the  Son  of  God  (ver.  70,  cf.  Mark  xiv.  63),  a  higher 
title  than  messiah  (cf.  John  xx.  31),  but  his  pre- 
diction speaks  of  the  Danielic  Son  of  man  returning 
in  power  to  fulfil  the  royal  divine  purpose  which 
His  death  was  supposed  to  check.  It  might  appear 
recondite  to  find  in  the  words  seated  at  the  right 
hand  an  allusion  to  Ps.  ex.,  were  it  not  that  Jesus 
appears  to  have  already  quoted  that  psalm  during 
the  last  days  of  His  fife  (cf.  Mark  xii.  36).  The 
psalm,  as  a  messianic  ode,  had  a  great  career  in  the 
theology  of  the  early  church  (cf.  Mark  xvi.  19, 
1  Cor.  XV.  24  f.,  Heb.  i.  11  f.,  etc.).  It  is  the 
prediction  of  the  Danielic  Son  of  man  coming  on 
the  clouds  which  is  the  core  of  the  saying,  how- 
ever, and  this  cannot  be  interpreted  simply  as  the 
aspect  in  which  the  opponents  who  condemn  Jesu§ 


168  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

will  henceforth  have  to  regard  Him,  i.e.  as  judge 
instead  of  as  redeemer.^  Either  the  Marcan  form  ia 
original,  or  that  which  Luke  has  reproduced  but  which 
Matthew  preserves  in  a  conflate  reading,  retaining 
and  coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  in  spite  of  its  in- 
compatibility with  the  introductory  from  henceforth. 

The  primary  and  ultimate  source  of  such  Son 
of  man  passages  is  the  prediction  of  Dan.  vii.  13,  a 
description  which,  by  the  time  of  the  SimiHtudes  of 
Enoch,  had  become  definite  and  personal  ;  the  figure 
like  a  Son  of  man  who  sjmabolises  Israel  in  the  apoca- 
lyptic vision  of  Daniel  is  now  the  Son  of  man,  a 
supernatural  pre-existent  being,  who  sits  on  the 
throne  of  His  glory,  which  is  also  God's  throne,  as 
the  judge  and  ruler  of  men.  But  the  Enochic  Son 
of  man  has  no  career  on  earth  ;  He  is  only  revealed 
in  the  latter  days  of  resurrection  and  judgment, 
except  that  the  community  of  the  righteous  know 
Him  through  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Furthermore,  this  Son  of  man  is  related  to  Grod 
not  as  the  Father  but  as  the  Lord  of  Spirits. 

Now  it  is  the  references  in  the  gospels  to  suffering 
and  death  as  the  prelude  to  the  Son  of  man's  final 
victory,  and  to  His  career  hi  lowly  service  and  dis- 
cipHne  on  earth,  which  constitute  the  significance 
of  the  title  for  Jesus.  The  apocalyptic  origin  and 
setting  of  the  title  would  be  corroborated  if  it  were 
true  ^  that  Son  of  man  represented,  even  prior  to 
Daniel,  a  semi-mythological  conception  of  some  First 
Man,  a  heavenly  personality  parallel  to  the  figure  of 
messiah,  who  returns  with  divine  powers  of  restoring 

1  Cf.  above,  p.  100,  and  Abbott's  The  Son  of  Man,  3313-14. 

2  Cf.  Gressmann's   Ur sprung  der  Israelitisch-jiidischen  Eschato- 
,logie,  pp.  360  f. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  159 

life  at  the  end  of  history.  The  term  would  thus 
belong  to  the  technical  and  traditional  vocabulary 
of  eschatology  ;  it  was  capable  of  transformation, 
as  when  the  author  of  Daniel  interpreted  it  nationally 
instead  of  individually,  but  it  regained  its  messianic 
associations  later  and  finally  furnished  the  basis 
for  the  specific  conception  of  Jesus.  The  theory 
has  its  attractions,  but  it  is  not  certain  yet  whether 
Gressmann  has  discovered  an  Ariadne's  thread  or  a 
mare's  nest.  In  any  case,  the  term  as  present  to  the 
consciousness  of  Jesus  and  His  age  went  back  to 
the  Daniel-Enoch  cycle,  so  far  as  it  suggested  a 
messianic  role.  But,  while  the  Son  of  man  specially 
suggests  the  future  career  of  Christ  as  the  judge  of 
men,  who  is  only  to  enter  on  the  full  vocation  of 
messiah  after  death,  the  passages  which  associate 
the  Son  of  man  with  suffering  point  to  a  character- 
istic modification  or  expansion  of  the  term  by  Jesus. 
Neither  in  the  royal  divine  Son  of  God  of  the  second 
Psalm,  nor  in  the  DanieUc  Son  of  man,  was  there  any 
place  for  a  career  of  suffering  and  death.  What  the 
sjmoptic  tradition  represents  as  a  feature  of  the 
mind  of  Jesus  is  due  to  the  infusion  of  the  suffering 
Servant's  role  into  these  conceptions.  As  soon  as 
Peter  hails  Him  with  the  title  of  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  God,  He  begins  to  explain  that  the  Son  of  man 
must  suffer . . .  and  be  killed  and  be  raised  on  the  third 
day.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  incongruous  with 
the  traditional  apocalyptic  role  of  the  Son  of  man 
than  such  a  destiny.  The  idea  that  the  messiah 
was  to  die,  after  a  Hfe  of  humane  service  upon  earth, 
was  as  unprecedented  as  the  idea  of  a  messiah  who 
fulfilled  teaching  and  prophetic  functions  among 
men.    It  is  striking  when  the  mysterious  and  super- 


160  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

natural  figure  of  the  Son  of  man  as  presented  by 
Daniel  and  Enoch  is  identified  by  Jesus  with  Him- 
self, in  the  flash  of  prediction  to  the  high  priest ; 
but  it  is  even  more  striking  when  He  is  associated 
with  humiliation  and  sufiFering.  The  clue  to  such 
a  remarkable  consciousness  upon  the  part  of  Jesus 
is  furnished  by  '  the  inward  sjmthesis  of  these  two 
ideas  of  the  past  in  an  ideal,  nay  in  a  Personahty 
transcending  them  both.'  ^  The  allusion  to  Isaiah 
liii.  12  in  Luke  xxii.  37  implies  that  the  Servant-ideal 
was  fulfilled  by  Jesus  in  more  points  than  in  the 
special  mode  of  His  death ;  in  the  Hght  of  it  as  of 
nothing  else  can  we  understand  the  bearing  of  several 
of  the  Son  of  man  passages. 

The  dozen  references  to  Son  of  man  in  the  Fourth 
gospel  are  independent  of  the  sjmoptic  tradition  ; 
they  reflect  a  theology  which  presupposes  but 
amphfies  the  messianic  significance  of  the  title  for 
the  personalityof  the  incarnate  Christ.  Primarily, the 
element  of  supernatural  pre-existence  is  emphasised, 
as  in  iii.  13 — No  one  has  ascended  to  heaven,  except 
him  who  came  down  from  heaven,  the  Son  of  man  who 
is  in  heaven,  and  vi.  62 — What  if  you  see  the  Son  of 
man  ascending  where  he  was  before  ?  This  involves 
the  return  of  the  Son  of  man  to  heavenly  glory,  a 
thought  which  the  writer  connects  not  with  the 
second  coming,  but  with  the  ascension,  or  lifting 
up.  For  the  latter  idea  he  uses  a  suggestively 
ambiguous  term  {vxpova- 6 ai),^  which  might  denote 
either  crucifixion  (viii.  28)  or  exaltation  in  glory,® 

1  R.  H.  Charles,  The  Book  of  Enoch^,  p.  308. 

2  Cf.  Dr.  K.  A.  Abbott's  Johannine  Orammar,  22116,  e ;  26426. 

3  E.g.  in  the  LXX  of  the  Servant-prophecy,  Isa.  Hi.  18,  /5oi>  avvf}<T€k 
9  TTtttr  fxov  Kol  u\l/(i}dri<X€Tat  Kai  do^affd'^fferai.  <T<p65pa. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  161 

and  sometimes  seems  to  include  both  (xii.  32,  34). 
In  iii.  14-15,  the  conviction  that  the  Son  of  man 
must  he  lifted  up  is  expressed  by  a  comparison  of  the 
serpent  which  Moses  hfted  up  before  the  IsraeHtes 
in  the  wilderness  ;  '  compared  with  the  synoptic  pre- 
dictions of  the  passion  and  resurrection,  this  figure 
of  the  serpent  seems  recondite  and  abstruse,'  ^  but 
it  is  employed  to  bring  out  the  positive  communica- 
tion of  life  through  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
Jesus,  and  not  merely  the  divine  necessity  of  His 
passion.  Similarly,  the  two  allusions  to  the  Son 
of  man  being  glorified  (one  pubhc,  xii.  23,  and  the 
other  private,  xiii.  31)  imply  that  the  crucifixion, 
for  all  its  apparent  degradation  and  defeat,  is  the 
true  means  of  expressing  and  realising  the  divine 
nature  ;  through  the  sufferings  and  self-sacrifice  of 
Jesus,  the  real  glory  of  God  comes  out.  The  words 
are  a  slightly  elaborate  equivalent  for  the  synoptic 
phrase  about  minding  the  things  of  God  (see  above, 
p.  107).  When  the  writer  comes  to  speak  of  the 
communication  of  the  divine  Hfe  to  the  faith  of  men, 
he  develops  his  argument  in  a  series  of  subtle  and 
paradoxical  comments  upon  the  manna  in  the  wilder- 
ness, as  he  had  already  appHed  this  semi -allegorical 
method  to  the  legend  of  the  serpent.  Tnie  mystical 
interpretation  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  a  vital  imion 
between  the  participant  and  the  Hving  Christ  (vi.  53) 
is  farther  from  the  teaching  of  the  synoptic  Jesus  than 
the  earlier  saying  (vi.  27)  that  eternal  life  is  to  be 
given  to  Christians  by  the  Son  of  man,  for  him  God 
the  Father  has  sealed  {i.e.  certified  or  set  apart  for 
this  purpose),  but  the  latter  phrase  is  to  be  read  in 
the  Hght  of  the  former.    The  thought,  though  nol 

1  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott,  The  Son  of  Man,  3407,  i. 
L 


162  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

the  expression,  in  i.  51,  is  simpler  :  You  shall  see 
heaven  opened  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  upon  the  Son  of  man.  As  the  context 
indicates,  the  idea  is  that  Jacob's  dream  of  com- 
mmiion  between  God  and  men  is  to  be  fulfilled  for 
the  Church  in  the  person  of  Christ.  The  angels, 
says  Philo  in  his  exposition  of  Gren.  xxviii.  12  {de 
Somniis,  i.  22),  are  so-called,  because  they  'report 
(3tayyeAAovo-i)  the  Father's  injunctions  to  the  chil- 
dren, and  the  needs  of  the  children  to  the  Father.' 
This  is  the  function  of  Christ,  then,  to  maintain 
unbroken  communion  between  God  and  His  people; 
consequently  the  metaphorical  expression  of  the  say- 
ing covers  much  the  same  thoughts  as  are  presented 
by  the  author  of  Hebrews  in  the  description  of 
Jesus  as  the  high  priest  of  men.  *  In  and  with  Him, 
visibly  for  those  who  are  His,  heaven  is  upon  earth.'  ^ 
In  most  of  these  passages,  and  particularly  in  that 
last  quoted,  the  term  Son  of  man  has  obviously 
outgrown  its  primary  messianic  significance,  and  it 
may  be  held  that  this  is  true  even  of  the  references 
to  the  Son  of  man  as  judge.  The  reading  in  ix.  35 
is  doubtful.  But  if  Son  of  man  is  preferred  there 
to  Son  of  God,  the  idea  (cf .  ver.  39)  is  of  His  judg- 
ment as  in  V.  27  :  The  Father  has  granted  Him  the 
right  to  exercise  judgment,  because  He  is  the  Son  of 
man.  The  underlying  thought  is  almost  that  of  Acts 
xvii.  31,  Heb.  iv.  15,  and  even  Matt.  xxv.  31,  but  the 
critical  process  which  the  person  of  Christ  sets  in 
motion  for  men  tends  to  overshadow  the  more 
dramatic  and  eschatological  view  of  judgment  which 
the  sjnioptic  theology  had  put  forward.    Upon  the 

1  Julius  Grill,   Untersuchungen  iiber  die  Entstehung  des  vierten 
JEvangeliums  (1902),  p.  48. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  163 

whole,  therefore,  the  Fourth  gospel  assumes,  rather 
than  emphasises,  the  humanity  suggested  by  the 
term  Son  of  man,  while  it  elaborates  the  super- 
natural as  distinguished  from  the  apocalyptic  asso- 
ciations of  the  title. 

{d)  An  important  inference  for  the  messianic  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  follows  from  the  discussion  with 
the  scribes  over  the  Davidic  messiah  (Mark  xii.  35- 
37,  Matt.  xxii.  41-46,  Luke  xx.  41-44),  in  which  He 
corrects  the  popular  ^  inference  that  the  true  messiah 
needs  to  be  a  scion  and  heir  of  David  who  would  fulfil, 
as  the  Psalter  of  Solomon  expected,  the  nationalist 
hopes  of  Judaism,  by  overthrowing  the  Roman  yoke 
and  subduing  the  Gentiles  into  a  position  of  respectful 
homage  to  the  purified  and  triumphant  Jews.  The 
messianic  role  which  Jesus  was  conscious  of  fulfilUng 
had  no  relation  to  the  Jewish  monarchy.  He  appears 
to  have  accepted  the  title,  but  He  repudiated  both 
the  stress  laid  upon  it  and  the  royalist  associations 
with  which  it  was  invested.  The  authority  he  had 
to  exercise  was  through  humble  love  and  service, 
and  not  through  any  material  conquest  such  as  had 
been  for  long  expected  from  messiah  as  a  Davidic 
scion.  This  is  one  of  the  points  made  by  the  story  of 
the  entry  into  Jerusalem,  which  is  connected  with 
the  prediction  of  Zechariah's  humble  king  of  peace 
(Matt.  xxi.  5),  but  which  explicitly  differs  from  the 
setting  of  his  entry  in  the  group  of  oracles^  which  have 
been  incorporated  in  Zech.  ix.-xiv.,  by  ignoring  the 

1  Compare  the  appeal  of  Bartimaeus,  Jesus,  son  of  David,  and  the 
welcome  of  the  crowd  at  his  entry  into  Jerusalem,  besides  the  remark 
of  the  crowd  in  Matt.  xii.  23. 

8  The  influence  of  these  oracles  on  the  gospel  tradition  in  other 
directions  maybe  seen,e.gr.,  in  Matt.  xxvi.  31=Zech.  xiii.  7  (scattering 
of  disciples),  Matt,  xxvii.  9  t  =Zech.  xi.  13  (price  of  potter's  field), 


164  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

re-establishment  of  Israel  in  Palestine  after  the  de- 
feat of  their  pagan  oppressors.  It  is  rather  significant 
that  neither  here  nor  elsewhere  did  Jesus  call  Himself 
Son  of  David  ;  the  evangelists  who  attach  more  im- 
portance than  He  did  to  the  title,  explain  that  He 
was  born  in  the  Davidic  Hne  (cf.  e.g.  Matt.  i.  If.,  John 
vii.  42),  but  He  Himself  laid  no  claim  to  this,  although 
it  is  quite  possible  that  His  family  were  of  Davidic 
descent. 

This  is  borne  out  by  the  further  fact  that  Jesus 
does  not  appear  to  connect  the  new  covenant,  of  which 
He  speaks  at  the  Last  Supper,  with  the  messianic 
fulfilment  of  the  Davidic  hope.  Such  a  fulfilment 
would  have  been  consonant  with  several  Unes  of  the 
older  Jewish  tradition  {e.g.  Pss.  Ixxxix.  27,  and  cxxxii. 
11,  Ezek.  xxxvii.  24-25,  Ps.  Sol.  xvii.  5f.,  23  f.),and  in 
the  primitive  Church  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  was 
interpreted  in  the  Mght  (Acts  xiii.  34)  of  the  enig- 
matic prediction  (Isa.  Iv.  3), 

/  will  tnake  an  everlasting  covenant  with  you, 

Even  the  sure  mercies  of  David. 

i- 

But  while  Jesus  at  the  Last  Supper  speaks  of  the 
kingdom  in  terms  of  the  covenant-idea,  He  does  not 
associate  it  with  the  fulfilment  of  the  messianic  hope 
in  its  Davidic  form.  What  made  Him  sit  loose 
to  the  latter  ideal  was  His  higher  conception  of  the 
messianic  vocation  in  connection  with  the  Servant 
of  Yahveh,  rather  than  a  preference  for  some  more 

Luke  xxii.  20=Zech.  ix.  11  (blood  of  covenant),  and  John  xix.  37= 
Zech.  xii.  10  (penitence  for  murder  of  Jesus).  More  than  two  cen- 
turies after  the  death  of  Jesus  one  of  the  rabbis  (T.  B.  Sanhedr.,  98  a) 
explained  that  the  raessiah  would  come  as  in  Dan.  vii.  13,  if  Israel 
proved  worthy,  but  that  if  they  proved  unworthy  He  would  come 
upon  an  ass,  like  Zechariah's  prince,  i.e.  humbly. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  165 

apocalyptic  ideal  of  messiah,  or  a  desire  to  emphasise 
his  divine  (as  contrasted  with  a  Davidic)  Sonship, 
though  we  may  admit  that  the  latter  thought  is  not 
entirely  to  be  ruled  out  of  the  argument. 

(e)  The  inward  aspect  of  the  messianic  conscious- 
ness is  further  expressed  in  the  voice  of  divine 
approval  (Matt.iii.  17,  Marki.  11,  Matt.  xvii.  5,  etc.), 
Thou  art  my  Son,  my  beloved,  in  thee  am  I  well 
pleased.  Here  6  dyaTrrjTos  is  a  separate  title, 
equivalent  to  The  Beloved,  which  is  again,  for  the 
gospels,  practically  synonymous  with  The  Elecl,^  or 
Chosen  One  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  18,  Luke  ix.  35),  a  pre- 
Christian  messianic  title,  which  is  specially  used  by 
Luke  (cf.  xxiii.  35),  possibly  owing  to  the  influence 
of  Enoch.  But  this  does  not  imply  that  Jesus 
regarded  Himself  as  God's  Son  because  He  was 
conscious  of  being  the  Chosen  of  the  Father's  love. 
The  term  Beloved  is  primarily  messianic,  as  it  is  in 
the  '  Ascension  of  Isaiah,'  where,  hke  Son  of  God 
and  Son  of  man  elsewhere,  it  has  passed  from  a 
designation  of  Israel  into  a  title  of  Israel's  messiah. 
But  neither  in  the  theology  of  the  gospels,  any  more 
than  in  Ephesians  or  Barnabas  (3,  4)  or  Ignatius, 
is  it  a  central  term ;  and ,  the  personal  rather  than 
the  official  sense  of  the  name,  which  is  impMed  in 
the  synoptic  usage,  is  shown  by  the  adjectival  use 
in  Clement  of  Rome  (lix.  2-3)  as  well  as  in  the 
Johannine  periphrasis  (iii.  35,  v.  20,  x.  17,  xv.  9).^ 

(/)  Jesus  did  not  often  speak  of  God  as  the  Lord 
(o  Kvpios),  and  none  of  the  rare  allusions  *  to  Himself 

1  The  Meet  is  an  early  variant  reading  for  the  Son  in  John  i.  34. 

2  In  Eph.  i,  6  it  reproduces  the  son  of  His  love  in  Col.  i.  13. 

3  Matt.  vii.  22  (Luke  vi.  46),  Matt.  xxi.  3  =  Mark  xi.  3=Luke  xix. 
31,  34,  and  Matt,  xxiv,  42;  indirectly  in  Matt.  xxii.  43  f.  (koto  does 
David  call  him  Lord  $),  Matt.  xxv.  37  f.  {Lord,  when  did  we  see  theet) 


166  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

as  Lord  is  beyond  doubt ;  they  may  represent  an 
original  '  rabbi '  or  '  master,'  which  has  been 
amphfied  into  the  divine  title  by  the  evangelists. 
The  latter  process  is  specially  clear  in  Luke's 
use  of  the  term  as  appHed  to  Jesus  in  narrative  or 
in  address.  This  was  partly  due  to  its  popularity 
among  Gentile  Christians  as  a  more  intelhgible 
synonym  for  messiah  or  Christ,  partly  also  to  the 
growing  sense  of  His  divine  nature.  Both  considera- 
tions, but  especially  the  former,  led  to  the  title  being 
applied  to  Jesus  during  His  Hfetime,^  although  even 
according  to  Luke  (Acts  ii.  36)  He  really  became  Lord 
at  the  resurrection.  There  is  no  clear  trace  in  the 
theology  of  the  gospels  of  any  tacit  protest  against 
the  contemporary  tendency  to  apply  the  term  to 
the  Roman  emperors.  In  the  one  passage  where 
such  a  reference  might  be  expected  (Luke  xxii.  26  f .), 
the  term  Lord  is  not  employed. 

(gr)  It  is  at  first  sight  strange,  in  view  of  the  later 
popularity  of  the  term,  that  the  conception  of  Wisdom 
as  a  personified  divine  power  was  not  employed  by 
the  theology  of  the  gospels.  Yet,  apart  from  the 
sa5dng  which  claims  for  Him  a  wisdom  superior 
to  that  of  Solomon  (Matt.  xii.  42),  Wisdom  occurs 
only  in  two  passages :  (a)  that  of  Matt.  xi.  19= 
Luke  vii.  35,  and  (6)  that  of  Luke  xi.  49.  In  the 
former,  upon  the  practical  vindication  of  Wisdom, 
Wisdom  means  the  divine  providence  which  in- 
spires both  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  in  their 
different  roles.  This  enters  also  into  the  con- 
ception of  the  second  passage,  where  Luke  per- 
sonifies Wisdom,   and   puts  into   her  Hps,  possibly 

1  So  in  the  gospel  of  Peter ;  on  the  religious  significance  of  the 
term,  see  Kattenbusch's  Apost.  Symbol^  ii.  596  f. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OP  JESUS  167 

as  a  quotation  from  some  lost  sapiential  book,  words 
which  Matthew  (xxiii.  34  f .)  attributes  in  an  expanded 
form  to  Jesus  Himself  :  Therefore  the  Wisdom  of  God 
has  said,  I  will  send  to  them  prophets  and  apostles, 
some  of  whom  they  will  kill  and  drive  out,  that  the 
blood  of  all  the  prophets  shed  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world  may  be  required  of  this  generation:  .  .  .  yea, 
I  tell  you,  from  this  generation  shall  it  be  required.  In 
the  pre-Christian  book  of  Jubilees  (i.  12)  God  promises 
Moses  :  /  shall  send  witnesses  unto  them,  that  I  may 
witness  against  them,  but  they  will  not  hear,  and  will 
slay  the  witnesses  also,  and  they  will  persecute  those 
who  seek  the  Law.  The  interest  of  this  parallel  is 
heightened  by  differences  between  it  and  the  passage 
from  the  gospels.  In  the  latter  (cf.  especially 
Luke  xi.  45  f .)  the  thought  is  that  the  rigid  authorities 
and  interpreters  of  the  Law  will  be  responsible 
for  the  murder  of  Grod's  witnesses,  whereas  the 
object  of  Jubilees  is  to  uphold  the  vaHdity  of  the 
Law.  In  the  second  place,  the  context  of  the  passage 
in  Jubilees  suggests  that,  in  spite  of  this  hostile 
attitude  to  the  divine  witnesses,  Israel  will  ulti- 
mately repent.  The  gospels,  on  the  other  hand,  do 
not  anticipate  anything  except  impenitent  enmity 
from  the  Jewish  nation  as  a  whole. 

When  we  pass  on  to  the  Fourth  gospel,  it  is  to 
find  several  of  the  older  conceptions  of  Wisdom 
expressed,  in  more  or  less  modified  form,  but  the 
conception  itself  absent  from  beginning  to  end.  In 
the  Book  of  Wisdom,  Wisdom  becomes  practically  a 
personified  organ  of  the  divine  creation,  revelation, 
and  ethical  inspiration,  with  cosmic  functions  which 
are  assigned  by  Philo  to  the  Logos  as  well.  In  the 
latter  writer,  however,  the  Logos  is  more  prominent 


168  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

than  Wisdom,  and  this  approximates  to  the  stand- 
point of  the  Fourth  gospel's  theology,  although,  in 
contrast  to  Philo,  the  evangelist  excludes  Wisdom 
entirely  from  his  delineation  of  Jesus  as  the  Logos.* 
The  very  term  {(TO(j>ia)  is  deUberately  omitted,  with 
the  cognate  term  yvCHa-Ls.  The  Christ  of  the  Fourth 
gospel  declares  I  am  the  Truth,  but  not  /  am  the 
Wisdom.  It  is  as  the  incarnate  Logos,  not  as  the 
incarnate  Wisdom  of  God,  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God.  The  most  probable  explanation 
of  this  avoidance  of  cro<^ta  is  that  it  was  due  not  only 
to  the  feminine  form  of  the  word,  but  to  the  role 
which  Wisdom  had  already  begun  to  play  among  the 
seons  of  Gnostic  theosophy,  where  its  functions  and 
characteristics  are  distinctly  lower  than  in  the  pre- 
Christian  developments  of  the  later  Judaism.  Even 
in  the  SimiUtudes  of  Enoch,  the  conception  of 
the  divine  Wisdom  blends  with  that  of  the  Son  of 
man,  although  the  connection  is  left  unexplained 
(xHi.).  Wisdom  came  to  mnke  her  dwelling  among 
the  children  of  men  and  found  no  dwelling  place ;  hke 
the  Logos  of  the  Johannine  prologue,  men  would 
not  receive  the  divine  messenger,  but  preferred 
darkness  to  light,  welcoming  unrighteousness  instead 
of  Wisdom.  Only,  whereas  the  Enochic  Wisdom 
returned  to  heaven  baffled,  the  Logos  became  flesh 
and  carried  out  the  purpose  of  God  amid  the  faith- 
lessness and  disobedience  of  men. 

{h)  The  specific  category  of  the  Logos,  in  the 
Fourth  gospel's  theology,  embraces  not  merely  the 
functions  of  Wisdom  but  of  more  than  one  of  the 

1  In  the  Poimandres  theosophy,  where  the  doctrine  emerges  of  the 
Logos  as  the  divine  Son,  a  second  God  whom  men  learn  to  reverence, 
there  is  a  similar  absence  of  the  Wisdom  idea. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  169 

other  synoptic  categories  for  the  person  of  Jesus. 
The  Greek  term  Logos  (Aoyos)  denoted  not  simply 
reason,  but  the  speech  in  which  reason  uttered  itself 
to  men.  Now  the  Greek  speculations  upon  the 
Logos  had  been  primarily  concerned  with  the 
problem  of  the  relation  between  the  created  universe 
and  God,  which  was  solved  by  the  theory  that  the 
divine  reason  pervaded  the  visible  world.  Philo, 
working  on  the  Jewish  conception  of  the  Word,  made 
the  Logos  the  organ  of  God's  self-revelation  to  men 
as  well  as  of  His  creative  power  ;  he  thus  overcame 
the  duahsm  between  the  world  and  a  transcendent 
God,  and  conserved  the  principle  of  spontaneous 
self-revelation  ;  but  this  was  at  the  expense  of 
consistency,  for  his  view  of  the  Logos  wavers  between 
a  more  or  less  independent  divine  agent  and  an 
impersonal  expression  of  the  divine  mind  and  will. 
It  is  difficult  to  ignore  the  Philonian  background  for 
this  idea  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  but  the  genesis  of 
the  Logos-idea  is  less  important  for  our  purpose 
than  its  exodus.  It  was  baptized  by  the  Fourth 
gospel  into  Christ,  and  served  to  guide  generations 
of  beheving  men  into  a  fuller  apprehension  of  Jesus 
than  the  previous  messianic  categories  of  the  synoptic 
theology  could  have  done. 

Take  the  prologue  to  the  Fourth  gospel,  to  which 
the  term,  though  not  the  thought,  is  confined. 
Phrase  after  phrase  in  it  is  carefully  chosen  to  set 
aside  some  misconception  of  what  Christ  was  as 
the  true  Logos.  The  Logos  existed  in  the  very 
beginning — not  an  inferior  seon  or  emanation,  sub- 
sequent to  the  original  order  of  things,  as  e.g.  the 
Valentinian  Gnostics  taught;  the  Logos  was  in  vital 
relation  tvith  God,  the  Logos  was  divine  by  nature — 


170  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

not  a  mere  heavenly  aeon  as  the  Gnostics  argued, 
but  with  God  in  the  very  beginning  of  things  in 
unrivalled  supremacy.  It  was  through  this  Logos 
alone  that  God  created  the  imi verse.  Through  the 
Logos  everything  came  into  being,  and  apart  from  the 
Logos  no  existence  came  into  being — a  side-stroke  at 
the  Gnostic  theories  of  creation  through  angels  or  a 
plurahty  of  inferior  aeons,  of  matter  as  self-existent, 
and  of  the  creator  as  distinguished  from  the  redeemer. 
Here  the  Logos  is,  as  it  was  to  Philo  in  his  own  way, 
the  sole  organ  or  instrument  of  creation.  Then 
follows  the  work  of  the  Logos  within  the  created 
universe  of  men.  Life — in  the  pregnant  sense  of 
the  term — was  in  the  Logos,  as  divine,  and  that 
Life  was  the  Light  of  men,^  as  opposed  to  the  Gnostic 
doctrine  that  the  powers  of  creation  were  at  issue 
with  the  highest  revelation  of  God.  The  Light 
shines  in  the  Darkness,  but  the  Darkness  has  not  under- 
stood it  (cf.  iii.  19,  xiii.  30).  This  is  the  Johannine 
form  of  the  sjmoptic  antithesis  between  the  realms 
of  Satan  and  God.  Then  comes  an  impHcit  contrast 
between  the  Logos  and  John  the  Baptist,  whose 
ministry,  in  opposition  to  some  current  exaggera- 
tions, is  ranked  subordinate  and  transient.  He  was 
simply  sent  by  God  to  bear  testimony  to  the  Light. 
The  real  Light,  which  enlightens  every  man,  vxis 
coming  into  the  world ;  even  when  John  entered  on 
his  career  of  testimony,  the  Light  was  breaking 
round  him  upon  men.  But  instead  of  accepting 
John's  testimony,  and  allowing  themselves  to  be 
enlightened,  mankind  denied  and  rejected  Him.  He 
entered  into  the  world — the  world  which  came  into 
being  through  him  (and  not  through  any  demiurge) 

1  Note  the  connection  in  iii.  16  f.,  19  f.,  and  viii.  12. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  171 

— but  the  world  did  not  recognise  him.  He  came  to 
what  was  his  own,  but  his  own  people  did  not  welcome 
him.  On  the  other  hand,  this  tragedy  is  set  o£E 
by  success.  Those  who  do  accept  him — to  them  he 
has  given  the  right  of  becoming  God's  children,  that  is, 
to  those  who  believe  in  his  name,  who  owe  their  birth 
to  God,  not  to  human  blood,  nor  to  any  impulse  of 
the  flesh,  nor  (as  some  Gnostics  taught)  to  the  human 
will.  So  the  Logos  became  flesh  (instead  of  a  phantom 
Jesus,  as  the  docetic  Gnostics  taught),  and  tarried 
among  us,  and  we  saw  his  glory — glory  such  as  an 
only  son  has,  who  comes  from  his  father,  full  of  grace 
and  truth.  .  .  .  From  his  fulness  (instead  of  from 
a  variety  of  Gnostic  aeons)  we  have  all  received  grace 
after  grace  ^ ;  for  while  the  Law  was  given  through 
Moses  (and  therefore,  being  divine,  is  not  to  be  re 
jected  as  the  Gnostics  did),  grace  and  truth  have  come 
through  Jesus  Christ  (the  Christian  revelation  of  God's 
reality  needed  a  deeper  and  more  personal  medium 
than  that  of  a  Jewish  lawgiver).  Tliis  gracious 
embodiment  of  the  divine  reahty  is  due  to  the 
person  of  the  divine  Son.  No  one,  not  even  Moses, 
has  ever  seen  God,  but  he  has  been  unfolded  by  the 
only  divine  One  who  lies  (once  more,  after  His  in- 
carnate Ufe  on  earth)  upon  the  Father's  breast  (see 
above,  p.  139). 

It  only  remains  to  add  that  in  the  name  of  '  Jesus  ' 
there  was  no  specifically  religious  meaning.  Matthew's 
gospel,   in   the   birth-section,   attaches   a   pregnant 

1  Compare  Philo's  words  in  De  Fosteritate  Gaini,  43 :  *  God  always 
measures  out  and  apportions  with  reserve  His  first  graces  (xaotras), 
ere  the  partakers  grow  sated  and  wauton  ;  then  He  bestows  others  in 
place  of  them  (er^pas  avr  iKeivuv)  .  .  .  and  so  forth,  always  new  for 
old  {v4a$  olvtI  TraXatoWpwi').' 


172  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

sense  to  it:  Thou  shall  call  his  name  'Jesus,^  for  he 
shall  save  his  people  from  their  sins,  an  obvious  play 
upon  the  etymology  of  the  Hebrew  original  ('  Yahveh 
is  salvation  '),  but  no  such  significance  is  felt  by  any 
of  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus.  As  for  '  Christ ' 
(xptcTTo?,  maschiah),  it  meant  '  the  anointed  One,' 
not  one  who  had  been  anointed  ;  it  was  a  technical 
term  ^  for  Grod's  vassal  or  regent  who  was  to  execute 
His  royal  purpose  upon  earth.  Curiously  enough, 
it  is  in  the  Fourth  gospel  alone,  which  (in  spite  of 
iv.  25  and  xx.  31)  is  the  least  messianic  of  the  four 
gospels,  that  the  term  '  messiah '  is  preserved 
(cf.  i.  41).  The  Christ,  whom  Matthew  hails  at  the 
outset  as  the  true  Immanuel  ('  God  with  us '),  indeed 
promises  at  the  close  to  be  with  His  people  for  ever. 
And  this  presence  is  the  presence  of  One  who  has 
passed  through  death  for  the  sake  of  men,  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Jesus  who  came  to  save  His  people  from 
their  sins,  and  saved  them  by  shedding  His  blood 
for  the  forgiveness  of  sins  (xxvi.  28).  The  concep- 
tion is  that  Christ  mediates  a  new  relationship 
between  God  and  man  ;  He  has  complete  power  and 
authority  over  the  people  of  God  His  Father.  This 
idea  (see  above,  pp.  142  f.)  is  one  stage  on  the  road 
to  the  Johannine  view,  but  the  conception  of  the 
mystical  presence  of  Christ  is  presented  by  the 
Fourth  gospel  in  terms  of  contemporary  Hellenistic 
mysticism  rather  than  along  the  lines  of  the  Jewish 
view.2 


1  Never  used  absolutely,  however,  for  the  messiah  till  the  gospels 
and  the  apocalypse  of  Baruch  (cf.  E.  A.  Abbott,  TAe  Soil  of  Alan, 
3062,  i.-iv.). 

2  On  this  unio  mystica,  in  relation  to  contemporary  Hellenistic 
religion,  see  especially  Reitzenstein's  Poimandres,  pp.  245  f. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  173 

The  increasing  stress  which  begins  to  be  laid  upon 
faith  in  Christ  is  cognate  to  this  behef  in  His  spiritual 
presence.  The  quahties  which  draw  out  rehgious 
confidence  are  present  in  the  Jesus  of  the  synoptic 
tradition  ;  He  appeals  for  loyalty  for  His  sake,  and 
accepts  the  grateful  homage  of  men.  But  it  is  faith 
in  God  rather  than  faith  in  Himself  which  is  upper- 
most in  His  teaching.  His  divine  authority  invests 
Him  with  a  unique  claim,  but  the  exphcit  allusions 
to  faith  in  Himself  are  scanty.  Besides  Luke  viii. 
50,^  there  is  the  saying  about  the  little  ones  who  believe 
in  me  (Matt,  xviii.  6).  The  words  in  me  are  not 
quite  certain  of  their  place  in  the  text  of  the  Marcan 
parallel  (ix.  42),  and  their  absence  would  tend  to 
invahdate  Matthew's  phrasing,^  as  a  touch  of  his 
higher  christology.  But  the  words  are  more  con- 
gruous to  the  Marcan  context  than  to  the  Matthean, 
and  their  presence  in  the  latter  text  is  probably 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  author  found  them  already 
in  Mark.  Taken  along  with  the  general  attitude  of 
Jesus  to  God  and  men,  they  express  the  truth  that 
He  required  a  confidence  in  HimseK  as  God's  Son 
and  Servant,  with  a  devotion  which  involved  trust 
and  confidence  in  His  divine  power.  He  asked 
for  more  than  behef  in  His  word.  He  sought  to 
attach  men  to  Himself  as  God's  Servant  and  Son. 
*  God  is  undoubtedly  the  only  and  the  ultimate  object 
of  faith,  but  what  the  synoptic  gospels  in  point  of 
fact  present  to  us  on  this  and  many  other  occasions 

1  Also  the  crucial  importance  of  men's  attitude  to  himself,  Matt. 
X.  32-33=.  Luke  xii.  8-9. 

2  Merx  insists  that  they  are  part  of  the  original  Marcan  text, 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  omitted  in  order  to  leave  the  term 
•believe'  as  an  equivalent  for  the  'fides  salvifica'  of  the  Church, 
But  he  will  not  accept  the  phrase  as  a  genuine  utterance  of  Jesus. 


174  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

is  (to  borrow  the  language  of  1  Pet.  i.  21),  the  spectacle 
of  men  who  believe  in  God  throiigh  him.*  ^  The 
soteriological  aspect  of  this  faith  is  naturally  pro- 
minent in  the  Fourth  gospel,  where  it  is  definitely 
put  forward  in  xiv.  1.  The  phrase  starts  a  problem 
of  translation,  for  which  the  most  suggestive  solu- 
tion resembles  that  proposed  by  Hort :  Let  not  your 
heart  be  troubled.  Believe — believe  in  God  and  in  me, 
'  the  first  suggestion  being  of  constancy  opposed  to 
troubling  and  fearfulness,  and  the  second  of  the 
ground  of  that  constancy,  rest  in  God,  itself  depend- 
ing on  rest  in  Christ.'  ^ 

To  sum  up  : 

The  Jesus  of  the  primitive  Church  was  a  Jesus 
whom  believers  hailed  and  worshipped  as  the  Christ 
of  God.  My  point  is  that  an  examination  of  the 
earHest  records,  of  the  sources  behind  Mark  and  the 
other  two  sjnioptic  gospels,  shows  that  the  messianic 
l^  drapery  or  setting  of  His  person  was  not  the  result 
of  Pauhnism  impinging  upon  the  pure  and  original 
memory  of  a  humanitarian  figure,  who  lived  and 
died  for  the  sake  of  a  message  which  amounted  to 
httle  more  than  a  doctrine  of  theism  plu^  brotherly 
love.^  This  is  a  conclusion  upon  which  several  fines 
of  research  converge.  It  was  brought  out  by  the 
recent  Paul  and  Jesus  controversy,  ratified  by  the 
simultaneous  investigations  into  the  theology  of 
Mark  and  Q,  and  corroborated,  with  independent 

1  Denney,  Jesus  and  the  Gospel,  p.  255. 

2  Cf.  Hort's  note  on  1  Peter  i.  21.  In  John  vi.  47  the  Syriac 
versions  add  in  God  to  believeth,  some  of  the  later  uncials  in  me. 

3  We  cannot  explain  primitive  Christianity  either  as  the  trans- 
formation of  the  Jesus  of  history  into  the  Christ  of  faith,  or  as  the 
evolution  of  a  Jesus-cult  out  of  a  current  series  of  christological 
doctrines. 


IV.]  THE  PERSON  OF  JESUS  176 

vigour,  by  the  eschatological  school.  Only,  the  aid 
of  the  eschatologists  is  not  to  be  accepted  on  their 
own  terms.  *  Whatever  the  ultimate  solution  may 
be,'  says  Schweitzer,  '  the  historical  Jesus  of  whom 
the  criticism  of  the  future  will  draw  the  portrait 
.  .  .  will  be  a  Jesus  who  was  messiah  and  Hved  as 
such.'  That  is  a  welcome  and  significant  admission, 
but  the  messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus  is  not  the 
ultimate  clue  to  His  personahty,  and  still  less  a 
messianic  consciousness  which  is  narrowed  to  the 
eschatological  scheme.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
we  join  issue  with  the  eschatologists.  In  the  desire 
to  find  a  real  Jesus  behind  the  mediaeval  regaUa  of  the 
creeds,  the  earher  movements  of  criticism  repeatedly 
tended  to  create  a  Christ  in  the  Hkeness  of  modem 
rationaHsm  and  morahsm,  who  was  messiah,  if  He  was 
messiah  at  all,  in  the  role  of  a  great  reHgious  reformer. 
In  the  conviction  that  such  attempts  were  unsatis- 
factory, from  the  historical  rather  than  from  the 
reHgious  point  of  view,  the  eschatologists  have  thrown 
into  brilliant  rehef  the  supernatural  features  which 
dominate  the  messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus,  not 
merely  of  the  primitive  Church.  Thus  far,  they 
argue,  and  no  farther  shalt  thou  go.  Beyond  that, 
research  cannot  proceed  without  recourse  to  what 
is  termed  psychology,  and  psychology  is  the  cardinal 
sin  here  in  the  eyes  of  Schweitzer  and  his  alUes.  To 
use  psychological  methods  in  estimating  the  con- 
sciousness of  Jesus  is  to  be  '  modem.'  I  confess  that 
to  attempt  a  non-psychological  exposition  of  the 
Son  of  man  passages  in  the  gospels,  for  example, 
seems  to  me  as  promising  and  legitimate  as  it  would 
be  to  propose  a  non-philosophic  inquiry  into  Plato's 
allusions  to  the  daemon  of  Socrates.     The  rationalis- 


176  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

ing  and  modernising  explanations  of  Jesus  have 
not  been  due  to  too  much  but  to  too  Uttle  psychology  ; 
if  they  have  failed  to  do  justice  to  the  Christ  of  the 
gospels,  the  fault  has  lain  elsewhere  than  in  the 
refusal  to  estimate  so  great  a  personaUty  on  the 
score  of  texts  and  current  ideas. 

It  is  the  recognition  of  this  fihal  consciousness  of 
Jesus  as  the  crucial  element  in  the  synoptic  christology 
which  really  enables  us  to  understand  the  continuity 
between  the  first  three  gospels  and  the  Fourth.  In 
the  latter  the  messianic  categories  fall  comparatively 
into  the  background,  but  the  absorption  of  the 
Fourth  gospel  in  the  relation  between  the  Father  and 
the  Son  is  theologically,  rather  than  historically, 
organic  to  the  underlying  basis  of  the  synoptic 
christology.^  When  the  fihal  consciousness  of 
Jesus  is  seen  to  be  prior  to  the  messianic,  the  start- 
ing-point for  the  special  christology  of  the  Fourth 
gospel  is  at  once  granted.  This  is  brought  out  even 
when  we  turn  to  a  conception  which  at  first  sight 
marks  one  of  the  broadest  differences  between  the 
first  three  gospels  and  the  Fourth,  viz.  the  conception 
of  the  Spirit. 

1  The  final  and  absolute  significance  of  Christ,  which  the  primitive 
tradition  expressed  in  terms  of  His  messianic  judicial  function,  now 
appears  as  His  eternal  presence  through  the  Spirit. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  177 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS 

The  phrase  *  the  Spirit  of  Jesus '  only  occurs  once 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  it  is  not  in  the  gospels. 
Luke  uses  it,  in  the  sequel  to  the  third  gospel,  to 
describe  a  mysterious  arrest  laid  upon  Paul  and 
his  companions,  as  they  endeavoured  to  begin  a 
Christian  mission  in  Bithynia  :  They  were  attempting 
to  make  their  way  into  Bithynia,  but  the  Spirit  of  Jesus 
did  not  allow  them}  The  difficulty  of  the  expression 
was  felt  at  an  early  period,  and  led  to  the  omission 
of  the  words  of  Jesus  from  some  texts  of  Acts.  Pro- 
bably it  denoted  a  vision  of  Jesus  which  appeared 
to  Paul  or  Silas  in  prophetic  ecstasy,  although  the 
more  common  phrase,  as  the  context  indicates,  was 
simply  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  the  Spirit,  But,  whatever 
Luke  meant,  it  is  not  in  this  sense  that  we  can  speak 
of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  in  connection  with  the  theology 
of  the  gospels.  Neither  is  it  in  the  trinitarian  sense  ; 
still  less,  in  the  opposite  and  untechnical  sense  of  the 
disposition  or  genius  which  characterises  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus.  It  is  true  that  this  last  connotation  of 
spirit  is  not  entirely  absent  even  from  the  vocabulary 
of  Paul;  although  he  normally  employs  spirit  in 
the  sense  of  a  divine  power  acting  on  the  Christian 
and  the  church  through  the  person  of  the  risen 

1  Acts  xvi.  7. 
M 


178  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Christ,  there  are  instances  in  which  he  seems  to 
use  the  term  spirit  in  connection  with  human  faculties 
and  temperament  as  a  modern  would.  But  by  the 
Spirit  of  Jesus,  as  a  rubric  for  some  of  the  contents 
of  the  gospels,  we  mean  (a)  the  divine  power  pos- 
sessed by  Jesus  on  earth,  and  (6)  the  divine  power 
which  came  upon  His  followers  after  His  resurrec- 
tion, rendering  their  hfe  stable  and  effective. 

Jesus  has  a  spirit  of  His  own,  like  any  one  else 
(cf.  Mark  ii.  8,  viii.  12),  but  the  second  Marcan 
passage  is  omitted,  and  the  former  altered,  by 
Matthew  and  Luke,  possibly  from  considerations  of 
reverence,  although  Matthew  describes  how  Jesus 
gave  up  his  spirit  on  the  cross  (xxvii.  50 ;  cf.  Eccles. 
xii.  7,  Luke  xxiii.  46).  Luke,  on  the  other  hand,  adds 
that  Jesus  as  a  child  developed  in  spirit  (c/cparaiovTo 
TTvcvixari),  and  lays  stress  upon  the  power  and 
presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  Jesus  during  His 
ministry  (cf.  e.g.  iv.  1,  14,  iv.  18  f.,  x.  21).  In  the 
Fourth  gospel  '  the  spirit '  of  Jesus  is  twice  men- 
tioned (xi.  33,  xiii.  21)  in  connection  with  perturba- 
tion of  soul,  quite  in  the  popular  usage  of  the  term  ; 
the  characteristic  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  has  to  be 
sought  elsewhere. 

(i)  In  the  synoptic  gospels,  the  only  occasion  on 
which  Jesus  mentions  the  Spirit  in  connection  with 
His  mission  is  in  self-defence,  when  the  Pharisees 
declared  that  His  power  of  expelling  evil  spirits  was 
due  to  collusion  with  Satan.  He  claims  that  He 
exercises  this  power  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  i.e.  as  pos- 
sessed by  the  Spirit  of  God,  which  works  for  the 
estabUshment  of  the  divine  reign  on  earth  by  over- 
throwing the  reign  of  Satan  (Matt.  xii.  28,  a  passage 
from    Q,  where    Luke   characteristically — cf.  i.  55, 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  179 

66,  71,  74 — changes  the  Spirit  into  the  finger  of  God).^ 
In  the  following  paragraph,  which  asserts  that  no 
one  can  pillage  a  strong  man's  house  unless  he  first 
seizes  the  strong  man  himself,  Jesus  implies  that  His 
exorcisms  are  the  result  of  a  previous  victory  over 
Satan.  This  consciousness  of  messianic  authority 
over  the  great  antagonist  of  God  reaches  back  to 
the  experiences  of  the  temptation  which  followed 
his  reception  of  the  Spirit  at  baptism  (Marki.  9-13= 
Matt.  iii.  13-iv.  11),  and  Luke  corroborates  the  con- 
nection by  associating  the  Isaianic  prophecy  of  the 
Spirit  with  the  opening  of  the  mission  of  Jesus  at 
Nazareth  (iv.  17  f.).  According  to  the  naive  cos- 
mogony which  is  presupposed  in  the  theology  of  the 
gospels,  Jesus  in  or  hy  the  Spirit  of  God  confronts 
the  authority  of  Satan  as  represented  by  the  evil 
spirits  of  disease.  The  sufferers  whom  He  cures  are 
€v  TTvcvfjLaTL  aKadapTi^,^  possessed  by  unclean  spirits, 
as  opposed  to  the  pure  Spirit  of  their  deliverer,  and 
it  is  the  sense  of  His  irresistible  approach,  heralding 
the  reign  of  God,  which  excites  the  anger  and  dismay 
of  the  unclean  spirits.  According  to  Mark  especially, 
they  recognise  their  conqueror  and  yield  sullenly 
to  His  superior  power  (cf.  i.  23  f.,  iii.  11,  v.  2  f., 
vii.  25,  ix.  17  f.),  as  He  invades  their  territory. 
It  is  this  consciousness  of  being  an  organ  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  which  prompts  the  saying  of  Jesus 
(preserved  in  Q,  Matt.  xii.  32=  Luke  xii.  10,  as  well 
as  in  Mark  iii.  29),  that  blasphemy  against  the  Holy 

1  In  later  theology  the  Holy  Spirit  is  called  the  Finger  of  God 
(cf.  Augustine  on  Ps.  xc.  11),  partly  on  the  basis  of  this  passage. 

2  The  wicked  {irovrjpd)  spirits  of  Luke  vii.  21  and  viii.  2  are  not 
essentially  different  (cf.  Matt.  xii.  46).  This  belief  is  said  to  have 
been  specially  prevalent  in  Galilee. 


180  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

Spirit,  such  as  the  Pharisees  uttered  in  ascribing 
his  exorcisms  to  Satanic  influence,  was  beyond  all 
pardon .  These  works  of  supernatural  power  authenti- 
cated Him  as  God's  representative,  whom  it  was 
perilous  to  despise,  according  to  the  Hebrew  con- 
ception of  prophetic  authority  (cf.  e.g.  Num.  xvi. 
29  f.,  Deut.  xviii.  19).  Jesus,  however,  claims  not 
simply  to  speak  the  divine  prophetic  word,  but  to 
act  under  the  divine  Spirit,  as  the  messiah  or  medium 
of  God's  redeeming  purpose  upon  earth. 

In  Mark's  version,  blasphemy  against  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  unpardonable,  whereas  the  sons  of  men 
are  forgiven  any  other  sin  of  blasphemy.  Tlius 
it  is  pardonable  to  curse  God  for  sending  trouble, 
as  Job  was  tempted  to  do,  because  man  is  often 
ignorant  of  the  truly  wise  and  kind  purpose  which 
Hes  behind  apparently  hostile  deahngs  of  God. 
Jesus  was  perfectly  frank  in  His  teaching  on  this 
point.  He  knows  that  God  often  seemed  indifferent 
and  callous,  e.g.,  in  the  sphere  of  answers  to  prayer.^ 
Men  are  sometimes  tempted  to  be  unjust  to  God 
because  He  seems  unjust  to  them. 

*  Behind  a  frowning  providence 
He  hides  a  smiling  face,' 

bat  those  who  see  only  the  frowns  are  apt  to  criticise 
Him  harshly.  Such  transgressions,  even  although 
they  are  unfair,  are  pronounced  pardonable,  because 
they  are  due  to  the  sufferer's  inabiUty  for  the  time 
being  to  understand  the  mysterious  ways  of  pro- 
vidence. It  is  a  very  different  matter  when  acts 
of  God,  such  as  the  expulsion  of  the  evil  spirits  by 
Jesus,  which  are  obviously  beneficent,  are  attributed 

I  Cf.  A.  B.  Bruce,  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Jesus,  pp.  147  f. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  181 

to  Satan.  Here  there  can  be  no  question  or  plea  of 
inadvertence.^  The  sin  is  blasphemy  of  a  deliberate 
kind,  and  when  the  scribes  out  of  sheer  malice  sneered 
at  the  cures  of  Jesus  as  due  to  collusion  with  the 
devil,  when  they  would  do  anything  rather  than  admit 
or  let  other  people  admit  His  claims  to  be  acting 
in  the  power  of  God,  He  declared  passionately  that 
their  malignant  attitude  put  them  beyond  the  reach  of 
forgiveness.  Whosoever  shall  blaspheme  against  the 
Holy  Spirit  never  has  forgiveness,  but  is  guilty  of  an 
eternal  sin.  Here  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the  power  of 
Grod  manifested  in  the  works  of  Jesus.  He  spoke 
in  this  way,  Mark  adds,  because  they  said,  He  has  an 
unclean  spirit.  But  the  identification  of  Jesus  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  this  connection,  does  not  depend 
upon  the  evangehst*s  comment ;  it  is  implicit  in  the 
argument. 

The  other  version  reproduced  by  Matthew  and 
partly  by  Luke,  contrasts  blasphemy  against  the 
Holy  Spirit  with  blasphemy  against  the  Son  of  man. 
Son  of  man  here  means  Jesus  in  His  human  aspect 
as  the  messiah  ;  it  is  in  the  last  degree  imUkely 
that  the  term  was  originally  generic,  and  that  the 
contrast  was  between  insulting  criticism  of  a  human 
being  and  blasphemy  against  the  divine  Spirit.  So 
far  as  the  two  renderings  of  the  original  Aramaic 
are  concerned,  however,  the  probabiUty  Hes  on  the 
side  of  Matthew's.  To  the  primitive  Christians, 
as  Schmiedel  points  out,  it  would  appear  the  height 
of  blasphemy  to  say  that  blasphemy  against  Jesus 

1  There  is  nothing  in  the  context  to  support  Oscar  Holtzmann's 
idea  that  the  scribes  viewed  the  good  works  of  Jesus  as  a  clever  device 
of  Satan  to  beguile  men,  first  of  all,  and  thus  get  them  more  completely 
into  his  power. 


182  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

was  pardonable,  and  unless  the  saying  had  been 
extant  in  some  authoritative  source  hke  Q,  it  is 
unUkely  that  it  would  have  been  constructed  out 
of  the  Marcan  version.  The  reverse  is  much  more 
probable,  as  indeed  Wellhausen  considers  was  the  case 
in  the  saying  of  Mark  iii.  28.  We  may  claim,  on  the 
whole,  that  this  consideration  outweighs  the  difficulty 
of  interpreting  the  saying  intelligibly,  as  implying  a 
distinction  between  Jesus  the  Son  of  man  and  Jesus 
as  an  agent  of  the  divine  Spirit.  It  would  be  easier  if 
Son  of  nmn  here  were  a  personal  self-designation,  but 
in  any  case  Jesus  was  speaking  of  Himself,  and  one 
clue  to  His  meaning  hes  in  the  misjudgment  of  His 
family  (Mark  iii.  20  :  They  said,  He  is  beside  himself). 
By  omitting  this,  from  motives  of  reverence,  Matthew 
and  Luke  have  failed  to  supply  a  contemporary 
illustration  of  what  blasphemy  against  Jesus  as  the 
Son  of  man  really  was.^  His  relatives  might  be  par- 
doned for  their  crude  misapprehension  of  His  actions  ; 
but  for  people  like  the  scribes,  who  were  face  to  face 
with  His  supernatural  acts  of  healing,  to  discredit 
Him  by  asserting  that  He  was  inspired  by  the  devil 
instead  of  by  the  pure  Spirit  of  God  was  unpardon- 
able. The  difference  between  the  two  versions  is 
one  of  form,  therefore,  rather  than  of  spirit.  Mark's 
tends  to  identify  Jesus  with  the  Holy  Spirit ;  a 
calumny  against  Him  is  a  blasphemy  against  the 
very  power  of  God.  The  other  version  contrasts 
the  Son  of  man  and  the  Spirit,  and  yet  includes 
the  scribes'  calumny  against  Jesus,  '  the  most  sense- 
less and  infamous  accusation  which  they  ever 
uttered,'  ^  under  the  category  of  sins  against  the 

1  Cf.  also  Luke  ix.  51  f.,  xxiii.  34. 
■  Keim,  Jesus  of  Nazara,  iv.  9. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  183 

Spirit ;  it  is  pronounced  more  than  a  personal 
insult  to  Jesus,  which  might  be  due  to  thoughtless- 
ness or  ignorance.  The  main  drawback  to  the  latter 
view  is  that  such  a  distinction  between  the  two 
aspects  of  Jesus  seems  to  indicate  a  theological 
position  of  the  early  church,  rather  than  what 
He  would  have  been  hkely  to  say  Himself  in  the 
historical  situation  presupposed.^ 

(ii)  The  allusions  to  the  Spirit  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  are  comparatively  rare.^  It  is  promised  to 
the  disciples  as  a  special  equipment  for  defence, 
when  they  are  brought  before  civil  and  reUgious 
tribunals,  pagan  and  Jewish.  Jesus  assures  them 
that  in  such  moments  they  will  be  inspired  to  speak 
the  apt  and  teUing  word,  instead  of  being  left  to 
their  own  resources.  Do  not  he  anxious  beforehand 
about  what  you  are  to  say  ;  say  whatever  is  given  to 
you  at  that  hour^  for  it  is  not  you  who  speak  but  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Mark  puts  this  promise  among  the 
final  directions  of  Jesus,  in  the  eschatological  section 
of  the  gospel  (xiii.  II).  Matthew  sets  it  earher,  in 
the  instructions  of  Jesus  for  the  mission  of  the 
twelve  during  His  Hfetime,  and  presents  a  shghtly 
altered  version  :  Do  not  be  anxious  about  how  or  what 
you  are  to  say,  for  it  is  not  you  who  speak  but  the  Spirit 
of  your  Father  which  speaks  through  you  (to  Xakovv 

'•  To  profane  the  Name  of  God  was  for  Judaism  a  form  of  irreverence 
which  could  not  be  forgiven  in  this  life.  According  to  Joma,  86  a: 
•For  such  a  sinner  repentance  cannot  suspend  his  punishment,  nor 
can  the  Day  of  Atonement  atone,  nor  can  suffering  avail  to  purify. ' 
The  Enochic  references  to  a  sin  against  the  Spirit  are  dubious  (xx.  6, 
Ixvii.  10). 

*  Once  the  Spirit  is  mentioned  as  the  source  of  Old  Testament  inspir- 
ation(Mark  xii.  36  =  Matt.  xxii.  43).  Luke,  though  partial  otherwise  to 
the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  corrects  this  Jewish  expression  (xi.  42). 


184  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

€1/  vfxiv,  X.  10-20.)  Luke  again  replaces  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  Mark's  logion  by  the  personal  Jesus : 
Settle  it  in  your  hearts  not  to  plan  your  answer  before- 
hand ;  I  myself  mill  give  you  a  mouth  and  unsdom 
which  all  your  adversaries  will  he  unable  to  resist  or 
refute  (xxi.  14-15).  Here  the  teUing  effect  of  a 
Christian  defence  is  heightened,  but  the  remarkable 
feature  is  that  Luke,  who  elsewhere  goes  beyond 
Mark  and  Matthew  in  emphasising  the  place  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  should  omit  it  in 
favour  of  Jesus  Himself  (cf.  xxiv.  49).  His  parallel 
to  the  Matthean  logion  is  set  unhistorically  as  a 
pendant  to  another  saying  upon  the  Spirit :  Do  not 
he  anxious  about  how  or  what  you  are  to  answer  or 
say,  for  the  Holy  Spirit  will  teach  you  at  that  hour 
what  has  to  be  said  (xii.  11-12),  but  the  modification  in 
xxi.  14-15  marks  the  first  stage  of  the  process  which 
ends  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  under  the  influence  of 
PauHnism,  with  the  correlation  of  Christ  and  the 
Spirit,  the  latter  being  no  longer  a  special  equip- 
ment for  exorcising  demons  or  making  an  effective 
confession,  but  the  principle  of  a  new  Mfe.  The 
developed  stage  of  reflection  in  Luke's  version  is 
indicated  not  merely  by  the  change  of  an  adequate 
testimony  into  an  irresistible  defence,  but  by  the  sub- 
stitution of  Jesus  for  the  Spirit.  The  latter  touch 
points  to  the  view  elaborated  in  the  Fourth  gospel, 
where  the  Spirit  {TrapaKXrjTos)  as  the  alter  ego  of 
Jesus  animates  and  inspires  Christians  for  effective 
testimony  in  face  of  an  incredulous  world  (John  xiv. 
26,  XV.  26,  xvi.  13). 

The  background  of  the  apostoUc  age  is  obvious 
in  Luke's  version  especially  ;  compare  passages  Hke 
Acts  xvi.  24,  2  T^m.  iv.  16,  1  Cor.  11.  13,  Eph.  vi.  19, 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  185 

and  the  experiences  of  Stephen  and  Paul.  But  the 
tone  of  the  saying,  particularly  in  its  Marcan  form,  is 
consonant  with  the  teaching  of  Jesus.  The  Spirit  is 
promised  not  as  the  principle  of  a  new  hfe  but  as  a 
special  equipment  for  emergencies,  which  ensures 
an  adequate  witness  to  the  gospel,  not  the  personal 
safety  of  the  witnesses.  This  is  on  the  Unes  of  the 
Old  Testament  conception  of  the  Spirit  as  prophetic 
and  inspiring.  There  is  no  attempt,  as  in  the  Fourth 
gospel,  to  follow  Paul  in  grouping  under  the  Spirit 
faith,  love,  fellowship,  and  life  eternal.  Jesus 
stated  these  in  other  terms,  and  it  is  an  incidental 
proof  of  the  authenticity  of  this  saying  that  it  con- 
fines the  Spirit  to  the  special  emergencies  which  met 
the  Christian  in  his  vocation  of  witnessing  to  the 
messianic  cause,  instead  of  connecting  the  Spirit 
with  Jesus  Himself  or  representing  it  as  given  in 
answer  to  prayer. 

So  far  as  the  theology  of  the  synoptic  gospels  is 
concerned,  Jesus  never  imparted  the  Spirit  to  His 
disciples,  nor  did  He  even  promise  it  expUcitly. 
Luke  supplements  this  omission  in  part  by  substi- 
tuting the  Holy  Spirit  for  good  things  in  the  saying 
from  Q  which  originally  ran  as  follows  :  //  then  you, 
evil  as  you  are,  know  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children, 
how  much  more  shall  your  Father  in  heaven  give  good 
things  to  those  who  ask  Him  (Matt.  vii.  11= Luke  xi. 
13),  and  in  Marcion's  edition  of  the  gospel  this  was 
reiterated  in  the  substitution  of  may  thy  Holy  Spirit 
come  upon  us  and  cleanse  us  for  the  first  or  second 
petition  of  the  Lord's  Prayer.  But  it  is  noticeable 
that  the  prediction  of  John  the  Baptist  that  Jesus 
was  to  baptize,  not  with  water  but  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  (ev  TTvcv/xaTt  aytc^,  Mark  i.  8),  is  not  echoed 


186  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

by  Jesus  Himself.^  Luke  interprets  it  as  fulfilled 
after  the  resurrection  in  the  outburst  of  spiritual 
ecstasy  at  Pentecost  (Luke  xxiv.  49,  cf.  Acts  i.  4), 
and  this  was  probably  the  normal  view  of  the  early 
church.  Yet,  in  one  important  passage  of  the 
Fourth  gospel  (xx.  22-3),  the  impartation  of  the 
Spirit  is  associated  with  an  appearance  of  the  risen 
Lord.  He  breathed  on  them  and  said  to  them,  Receive 
the  Holy  Spirit : 

Whosesoever  sins  you  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  ; 
Whosesoever  sins  you  retain,  they  are  retained. 

The  S3rmbolims  of  the  passage  is  partly  visible 
already  in  the  Philonic  system.  Commenting  on 
Gen.  ii.  7,  Philo  [Legum  Alleg.  i.  13),  observes  that 
'  there  are  three  things,  what  breathes  in,  what 
receives  the  breath,  and  what  is  breathed  in  ;  what 
breathes  in  is  God,  what  receives  God  is  6  vovs, 
and  what  is  breathed  in  is  to  Trvcu/ia.'  Through 
the  medium  of  the  Spirit  God  conveys  to  man  the 
power  (reivavTos  tov  deov  ttjv  ai.(f>'  iavTOv  SvvafJiLV  Sta 
Tov  fxka-ov  irviVfJiaro<i  o.-)(^pi,  tov  viroK€Lfj.€vov)  of  knowing 
and  touching  the  divine  nature,  and  the  reason  why 
irvoij  is  used  instead  of  Trvevfxa  in  the  former  part 
of  Gen.  ii.  7  is  that  Trvcv/ia  is  associated  with  energy 

and  intensity  (to  fxlv  yap  Trvtvfia  vcvor^Tai  Kara  Trjv 
laxvv  KOI  €VTOviav  kol  Svvafiiv),  whereas  rrvo-q  IS  a 
gentle,  mild  breath.  Consequently,  while  the  heavenly 
man  or  the  vovs  fashioned  after  God's  own  likeness 
may  be  said  to  partake  of  the  Spirit,  the  material 

1  Jesus  appears  to  have  invested  the  disciples  with  the  power  of 
exorcising  as  well  as  of  healing  (in  his  name  ?)  in  token  of  the  divine 
reign  which  they  were  to  announce  (Matt.  ix.  35,  Luke  ix.  1-2,  Matt. 
X.  1),  but  this  is  not  a  fulfilment  of  John's  prediction. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  187 

man  or  the  vows  €k  t^s  vkrj^  only  participates  in  the 
milder  effluence  of  the  divine  Being.  The  Fourth 
evangelist,  however,  refrains  from  associating  the  gift 
of  the  Spirit  with  a  new  creation  of  the  soul ;  he 
connects  the  vital  power  of  it  especially  with 
forgiveness. 

Now,  this  is  a  conception  of  the  Spirit  which  is 
significant  in  several  directions.  As  Baur  has  pointed 
out,  '  The  Spirit  only  comes  in  His  fulness  after  the 
close  of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus,  and  thus  stands,  as 
the  universal  Christian  principle,  high  above  the  per- 
sonal authority  even  of  the  apostles.'  ^  The  word- 
ing of  this  statement  is  not  beyond  criticism,  but  it 
is  substantially  accurate.  Elsewhere  in  the  Fourth 
gospel  the  author  is  not  content,  like  Luke,  to  ignore 
the  special  claim  on  behalf  of  Peter,  which  had  led  in 
some  Jewish  Christian  circles  to  the  shaping  of  the 
sajdng  in  Matt.  xvi.  19  ;  he  is  careful  to  suggest 
Peter's  subordination  to  the  favourite  disciple. 
Furthermore,  he  broadens  out  even  the  general 
promise  of  Matt,  xviii.  18  into  a  promise  ^  for  the 
disciples  as  a  body,  and  associates  it  with  the  Spirit. 
Finally,  this  incident  in  the  upper  room  is  the 
Johannine  equivalent  for  the  Lucan  story  of  the 
bestowal  of  the  Spirit  at  Pentecost.  The  writer's 
aim  is  to  connect  the  Spirit  as  closely  as  possible 
with  the  person  of  Christ,  a  connection  which  is  not 
prominent  in  the  Lucan  story,  where  moreover  the 
Spirit  is  ecstatic  or  explosive  rather  than  an  expres- 
sion for  the  indwelling  presence  of  the  living  Christ. 
According  to  the  Johannine  pragmatism   (xv.  26, 

1  Church  History  of  the  First  Three  Centuries,  i.  178. 
*  Von  Dobschiitz  (Ostern  und  P/ingsten,  1903)  further  identifies 
1  Cor.  IV.  6  witli  this  scene. 


188  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

xvi.  7,  etc.),  this  reception  of  the  Spirit  follows  the 
return  of  Jesus  to  the  Father,  and  it  is  therefore 
possible  that  the  latter  change  is  supposed  to  have 
taken  place  between  ver.  17  and  ver.  19.  In  any 
case  there  is  no  such  interval  of  time  as  in  the 
Lucan  story  or  even  in  Matthew's  gospel  (xxviii.  20). 
Jesus  is  glorified  and  the  Spirit  is  forthwith  bestowed 
by  Him  directly  on  the  Church,  without  any  sugges- 
tion that  it  was  to  be  mediated  to  others  through 
the  agency  of  the  apostles.^  This  does  not  imply 
that  the  author  was  indifferent  to  the  historical 
function  of  the  apostles  in  the  course  of  early  Chris- 
tianity. It  simply  marks  his  desire  to  emphasise 
the  significance  of  the  Spirit  as  the  very  life  of  Christ 
in  men,  and  to  connect  that  Spirit,  on  the  one  hand, 
with  the  risen  Jesus  directly,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
with  the  experience, 2  not  merely  with  the  particular 
activities,  of  the  Church.  The  description  of  the 
Spirit  being  breathed  upon  the  disciples  is  not 
exactly  harmonious  with  the  semi-personal  concep- 
tion which  pervades  the  previous  chapters  (xiv.-xvii.) : 
it  is  more  reahstic  than  we  might  expect  from  what 
precedes.  But  the  motive  of  the  incident  obviously 
is  to  safeguard  against  the  idea  that  the  Spirit  in  the 
Church  is  anything  else  than  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
Himself,  or  that  it  can  be  mediated  except  through 
direct    personal   touch    with   Him.^    According   to 

1  This  is  the  thought  which,  in  another  connection,  underlies  John 
iv.  23  f. 

»  Philo  {De  Plantatione,  5)  explains  Gen.  ii.  7  (God  breathed  into 
man's  face  the  breath  of  life,  hiirvevae  .  .  .  irvoT]v  ^wtJs)  to  mean  that 
man,  by  receiving  the  breath  of  the  divine  lips,  was  changed  into  the 
likeness  of  Him  who  imparted  the  breath. 

'  The  Spirit  which  those  who  believed  in  him  were  to  receive  (rii. 
39).    Here  truit  is  equivalent  to  personal  dependence. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  189 

the  Johannine  view,  the  faith  and  fellowship  of  the 
Church  rest  not  upon  the  Spirit  of  God  so  much  as 
on  the  Spirit  conceived  as  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  on 
the  Spirit  as  the  alter  ego  of  the  risen  Jesus,  whose 
functions  are  bound  up  with  the  revelation  of  God  in 
His  Son.  The  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  is  equivalent  ^ 
to  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  heart  of  Christians.^ 
The  Spirit  is  another  ^  comforter,  who  carries  on  in 
the  new  conditions  the  relation  of  Jesus  to  His  dis- 
ciples on  earth,  and  raises  that  relationship  to  an 
eternal  and  spiritual  tie  between  men  and  God. 
The  Fourth  gospel  reproduces  the  synoptic  concep- 
tion that  the  Spirit  did  not  exist  for  the  Church 
till  Jesus  died  and  rose  again  (vii.  39).  The  precise 
form  in  which  the  thought  is  expressed  is  not  S3moptic, 
but  the  thought  itself  is.  There  could  be  no  Spirit, 
in  the  Christian  sense  of  the  term,  until  Jesus  had 
passed  from  earth ;  only  when  He  was  glorified 
could  the  Spirit  come  into  play  within  the  sphere 
of  faith  as  an  inspiring  and  animating  power. 

The  fourth  evangehst  sums  up  this  characteristic 

1  The  two  conceptions  of  (a)  Christ  in  heaven,  dwelling  through 
His  alter  ego  in  the  hearts  of  His  people  ;  and  (6)  Christ  personally 
indwelling,  are  complementary  expressions  of  the  same  religious 
experience.  Both  were  already  suggested  by  Paul,  but  they  were 
needed  specially  by  the  Fourth  evangelist,  as  he  never  speaks  of 
Christians  dwelling  in  the  heavenly  places  or  having  their  life  hid 
with  Christ  in  God.  See  on  this  Beyschlag's  New  Testament  Theology, 
i.  279  f . 

'  Dr.  Abbott  {Johannine  Grammar,  2352-53)  subtly  distinguishes 
three  stages  in  xvi.  16-17  :  the  Spirit  is  to  be  with  them  (/te^'  vfxQ^v) 
for  ever,  not  for  a  short  time  as  Jesus  had  been  in  the  flesh  :  also,  it 
is  to  be  at  home  with  them  (Tra/o'  bpXv  fxiveC),  since  they  possess  a 
spiritual  affinity  with  the  truth:  finally,  it  is  to  be  in  them  [koI  iv 
i/up  ^arip),  i.e.  in  their  inmost  being. 

»  It  is  hardly  possible  to  regard  this  term  as  '  another  than  your- 
aelres '  (Abbott,  Johannine  Orammar,  2793-94), 


190  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

theology  of  the  Spirit  in  two  phrases  :  the  Paraclete 
and  the  Spirit  of  truth. 

(a)  The  former  (7ra/DaK  A. r^ros)  has  no  Enghsh  equi- 
valent. '  Comforter '  is  too  one-sided,  unless  it  is 
recollected  that  *  comfort '  etymologically  means 
to  strengthen.  '  Advocate  '  is  closer  to  the  original 
sense  of  the  Greek  term,  but  no  functions  of  inter- 
cession are  ascribed  to  the  Spirit.  Neither  is  much 
light  thrown  upon  the  Johannine  usage  by  the  fact 
that  the  Targum  employs  p'raqlita  for  the  angelic 
messenger  who  intervenes  in  Job  xxxiii.  23  f .  to  bring 
man  to  his  senses  before  it  is  too  late  :  except  that 
here  as  in  Philo  the  term  '  Paraclete '  has  acquired 
the  meaning  of  instructor  or  interpreter  in  things 
divine,  with  the  natural  connotation  of  helpfulness 
and  encouragement.  The  insight  and  aid  afforded 
by  the  Spirit  as  Paraclete,  according  to  the  Johannine 
theology,  may  be  said  to  relate  almost  entirely  to 
the  higher  gnosis  of  the  personahty  of  Christ.  All 
fresh  intuitions  and  experiences  of  the  Christian 
Hfe  are  referred  to  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  as 
Paraclete.  It  is  also  through  the  Church,  as  exercis- 
ing authority  in  the  life  and  witness  of  Christians 
to  the  hving  Christ,  that  the  Spirit  convicts  the 
outside  world  ^  of  the  tragic  error  which  it  makes 
in  refusing  to  take  Christ  at  His  own  and  at  the 
Church's  valuation.  The  presentment  of  Christ  as 
the  hght  and  love  of  God  rejected  by  men  will 
bring  home  to  their  conscience  the  sin  of  crucifying 
and  denying  Him  :  the  resurrection,  proved  by  the 
presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church,  shows  that  He 
did  not  perish  as  a  criminal,  but  hves  with  the 
Father,  while  the  real  crime  Ues  with  those  who  put 

1  xvi.  7-11, 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  191 

Him  to  death  as  a  blasphemer  :  finally,  this  vindica- 
tion of  Christ  by  the  resurrection  ^  proves  that  the 
devil,  as  prince  of  the  present  world,  is  doomed, 
since  the  living  presence  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church 
means  that  Christ  has  been  victorious  over  the  forces 
of  death  and  the  devil.  The  three  hnes  along  which 
the  world  is  thus  confounded  and  condemned  are 
not  separate  but  converging.  They  are  different 
directions  taken  by  the  same  overwhelming  force 
of  testimony  which  is  generated  by  the  Spirit  in  the 
Christian  community,  witnessing  through  the  very 
existence  of  that  community  as  a  spiritual  body  to 
the  Uving  Lord.  The  third  is  a  climax  only  in 
form.  The  expectation  of  judgment,  by  being 
transferred  to  the  sphere  of  the  Spirit,  ceases  to  be 
eschatological  in  the  sjnioptic  sense.  '  The  judg- 
ment upon  the  world  which  the  primitive  Christian 
community  looked  for  at  the  future  coming  of  the 
messiah  is  regarded  by  the  Hellenic  evangelist  as 
already  fulfilled  in  the  fact  that  Christ,  by  His  death 
and  by  His  being  glorified  in  the  Spirit  of  the  Church, 
had  been  proved  to  be  the  holy  One  of  God,  and  the 
victorious  conqueror  of  the  world.'  ^  The  very  fact 
that  the  writer  uses  a  technical  term  of  apocalyptic 
eschatology  (eAeyxciv)  in  this  spiritual  sense  seems 
to  emphasise  the  transformation  of  the  conception. 
The  apocalyptic  counterpart  left  no  doubt  as  to 
the  '  conviction '  being  one  of  doom  (cf .  Rev.  i.  7, 
Fourth  Esdras  xii.  32  f.,  etc.),  and  this  is  possibly  the 
primary  meaning  of  the  Fourth  evangehst,  although 
he  does  not  develop  the  line  of  thought.     For  this 

1  This  may  be  the  allusion  in  the  obscure  phrase  of  1  Tim.  iii.  16 
He  was  vindicated  by  the  Spirit.    See  above,  p.  37. 

2  Pfleiderer,  Primitive  Christianity,  iv.  221. 


192  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

reason,  among  others,  it  is  unlikely  that  the  con- 
vincing power  of  the  Spirit  in  this  passage  denotes 
the  overwhelming,  mysterious  effect  which  was 
sometimes  produced  on  outsiders  or  on  recalcitrant 
Christians  by  utterances  from  the  hps  of  men  who 
were  possessed  by  the  prophetic  Spirit  (instances  in 
1  Cor.  xiv.  24  f.,  Ignat.  ad  Phil.  7).^  The  impression 
which  the  Spirit  is  described  as  convejdng,  in  the 
Johannine  doctrine  of  conviction,  is  at  once  more 
general  and  less  remedial. 

(6)  The  Spirit  of  Truth  is  a  sjmonym  for  the  Para- 
clete, but  it  is  wholly  confined  to  the  operation  of 
the  Spirit  on  the  community  (contrast  xvi.  7  and 
xvi.  13).  The  phrase  itseK  is  as  old  as  the  Testa- 
ments of  the  Patriarchs  (cf.  Test.  Jud.  20),  but  the 
specific  sense  of  the  term  is  determined  by  the 
Johannine  usage  of  truth  ^  as  reahty,  as  the  trans- 
cendent and  absolute  divine  life  which  is  fully 
manifested  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  God's  Son.  Christ 
is  Himself  the  truth,  and  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  His 
Spirit,  mediating  for  men  that  personal  participa- 
tion in  the  eternal  fife  of  God  which  is  described  as 
the  knowledge  of  God  and  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
The  antithesis  to  truth  is  the  unsubstantial  as  well 
as  the  false,  and  the  corresponding  antithesis  is  that 
between  the  flesh  and  the  Spirit,  or  between  fight 
and  darkness.  As  the  grace  and  the  truth  of  God — 
i.e.  the  gracious  reafity,  or  the  real  grace — came 
through  Jesus  into  the  world,  the  Spirit  of  truth 
carries  on  this  full  disclosure  of  the  divine  nature 
to  the  faith  of  the  elect  and  susceptible. 

I  So  Weinel,  Die  Wirkungen  dts  Oeistes  und  der  Oeister  (1899), 
pp.  63,  189. 
9  Cf,  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  Christ  and  the  Gospels,  ii.  768-7X. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  193 

Attempts  have  been  made  sometimes  to  comiect 
both  epithets.  Thus  Dr.  Abbott  suggests  that  the 
Paraclete  is  called  the  Spirit  of  truth,  or  the  Holy 
Spirit,  in  order  to  safeguard  the  doctrine  against 
any  superstitious  notion  of  the  Advocate  procuring 
special  favours  from  God  contrary  to  justice  ;  simi- 
larly the  references  to  the  divine  origin  of  the  Para- 
clete in  xiv.  16,  26,  xv.  26,  must  be  interpreted,  on 
his  theory,  as  emphasising  the  fact  that  the  Advocate 
of  Christians  is  not  '  one  of  the  ordinary  kind — the 
kind  that  takes  up  a  chent's  cause,  good  or  bad,  and 
makes  the  best  of  it.'  ^  It  is  extremely  doubtful,  how- 
ever, if  such  a  shade  of  meaning  was  present  to  the 
mind  of  the  writer.  The  term  Paraclete  was  probably 
used  by  him  without  any  such  consciousness  of  its 
hteral  legal  associations,  and  in  calling  the  Spirit 
the  Sjnrit  of  truth,  he  simply  defines  its  sphere  as 
the  unfolding  of  the  divine  reaUty  of  hfe  in  Christ. 
The  full  truth  into  which  the  Spirit  initiates  the 
faithful  is  the  absolute  manifestation  of  God  in  the 
person  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  will  glorify  me,  for  he 
will  take  of  mine  and  declare  it  to  you.  The  higher 
insight  into  the  meaning  of  the  Hfe  of  Jesus,  which 
is  presented  in  the  Fourth  gospel,  is  thus  defended 
as  legitimate  over  against  the  vagaries  of  Gnostic 
speculation  on  the  one  side,  and  the  opposite  dis- 
inchnation  to  advance  beyond  the  Jewish  Christian 
or  messianic  categories  of  interpretation  which  had 
been  current  among  the  first  generation  of  the 
disciples. 

The  writer  does  more,  however,  than  justify  his 
own  interpretation  of  Christ.  He  anticipates  fresh 
insight  into  the  meaning  of  the  Lord,  provided  that 

1  Cf.  Johannine  Vocabulary,  1720  Z ;  Johannine  Grammar,  1932. 

N 


194  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [CH. 

the  historic  incarnation  is  maintained  as  primary. 
It  is  the  work  of  the  Spirit  to  unfold  more  and  more 
of  that  meaning,  as  beheving  men  keep  in  contact 
with  Him  who  is  Himself  the  Reahty.  The  Fourth 
gospel  provides  for  further  self-expression  on  the 
part  of  the  Christ  to  His  Church,  and  these  revela- 
tions in  the  future  and  of  the  future  lie  within  the 
progressive  witness  of  the  Spirit  to  faith.  They  are 
described  in  xvi.  13-14  : — 

He  will  declare  to  you  the  things  thai  are  to  come. 
He  will  glorify  me  : 

Jor  he  wiU  take  of  mine  and  declare  it  to  you. 

The  former  function  is  the  Johannine  equivalent 
for  the  synoptic  eschatological  predictions,  and 
represents  the  normal  Church's  view  of  the  Spirit 
as  the  inspirer  of  hope  for  the  future.  But  the 
second  declaration  is  more  characteristic  of  the 
gospel's  theology,^  and  though  it  would  be  unfair 
to  read  the  former  exclusively  in  the  light  of  the 
latter,  it  is  on  the  latter  that  the  stress  falls. 

The  distinctive  sense  of  '  truth '  in  the  Fourth 
gospel,  as  an  equivalent  for  the  reahty  of  the  divine 
nature,  suggests  that  the  Spirit  of  this  a\ri$tia  would 
be  mediated  in  some  sense  through  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper.  In  the  current  Hellenistic 
theology  the  Spirit  or  essence  of   the  deity  was 

1  It  corresponds  to  the  synoptic  view  that  the  full  meaning  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  only  dawned  upon  the  Church  after  His  death,  and  that  the 
latter  was  needed  in  order  to  reveal  His  divine  messianic  significance 
(cf.  Luke  xxiv.  25-27,  45).  This  prompted  the  interest  in  the  proof 
from  prophecy,  especially,  but  the  theology  of  the  gospels  is  still 
remote  from  the  later  Gnostic  view,  based  on  Acts  i.  3,  that  Jesus 
imparted  esoteric  teaching  during  the  interval  between  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  ascension. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  195 

imparted  to  worshippers  not  simply  through  ecstasy 
but  through  participation  in  sacred  rites  and  creeds, 
by  means  of  which  the  devotee  was  invested  with 
immortaHty  and  freed  from  the  corruption  of  the 
flesh.  It  is  a  moot  point  how  far  the  language  of 
the  Fourth  gospel,  which  undoubtedly  recalls  this 
popular  theology  of  the  cults,  denotes  a  reaction 
against  it  or  against  its  introduction  into  the  Chris- 
tian cult.  At  any  rate,  the  connection  of  the  Spirit 
with  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  is  stated  in  a 
fashion  which  has  no  exact  parallel  in  the  synoptic 
gospels. 

(c)  In  iii.  1  f.  there  may  be  an  impUcit  contrast 
between  the  Christian  sacrament  of  baptism  and  the 
ritual  hope  of  regeneration  which  characterised 
some  of  the  mysteries  and  cults,  but,  if  so,  this 
reference  is  wholly  secondary  to  the  main  theme  of 
the  passage,  which  is  to  present  the  Christian  con- 
dition of  access  to  God  over  against  the  Jewish. 
The  setting  of  the  idea  in  a  dialogue  between  Jesus 
and  a  Jewish  rabbi  is  sufficient  to  suggest  what  was 
in  the  writer's  mind.  Christian  baptism,  admitting 
the  convert  to  God's  kingdom,  is  a  regenerating 
process  which  makes  him  in  reaUty  what  the  Jewish 
proselyte  was  in  name,  *  a  new-bom  child,'  initiating 
him  into  the  mysteries  of  the  divine  household.^ 
The  subsequent  allusion  to  Hght  (verses  19  f.)  corro- 
borates this.  Proselj^es  to  the  monotheism  of  the 
Jews  should  be  heartily  welcomed,  says  Philo  {De 
Pcenitentia,  i.),  since  '  although  they  were  formerly 
bHnd  they  have  received  their  sight,  beholding 
light  most  brilliant  out  of  darkness  most  profound.' 

1  In  iii.  3  (cf.  Justin's  Apel.  i.  61)  we  have  a  development  of  Matt, 
xviii.  3. 


196  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

The  radical  change  of  nature  upon  which  Jesus 
insisted  when  He  declared  that  men  must  turn  and 
become  like  little  children  before  they  could  enter 
the  kingdom,  is  thus  presented  in  the  Fourth  gospel 
as  regeneration,  a  birth  from  above,  which  works  an 
entire  transformation  of  life.  The  necessity  of  this 
birth  from  the  Spirit  is  traced  to  the  nature  of  man 
as  flesh.  That  which  is  horn  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and 
that  which  is  horn  of  the  spirit  is  spirit.  As  the  pro- 
logue had  already  pointed  out,  those  who  hecome 
children  of  God  by  faith  in  Christ  are  horn  of  God,  not 
of  any  human  impulse  or  effort.  This  is  the  theo- 
logical interpretation,  from  the  side  of  God,  of  the 
experience  which  the  synoptic  gospels  present  as  a 
moral  change  upon  the  part  of  man  in  response  to 
God's  call ;  as  a  theological  interpretation  it  bears 
a  predestinarian  and  semi-metaphysical  appearance 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  the  more 
so  that  this  gospel  avoids  terms  like  repentance  and 
turning.  But  elsewhere  faith  is  presented  as  the 
vital  condition  of  the  new  birth,  and  even  in  the 
context  of  this  passage  it  is  subsequently  recognised. 
From  the  outset  baptism  into  the  name  of  Christ 
had  connoted  an  inward  personal  union  with  the 
nature  of  the  Lord.  Paul  had  deepened  this  relation 
by  his  faith-mysticism,  and  in  the  Fourth  gospel 
there  is  as  httle  sense  of  any  contradiction  or  dis- 
crepancy between  the  spiritual  process  and  the  rite 
with  which  it  was  bound  up  in  the  normal  practice 
of  the  Church.  The  writer  significantly  lays  stress 
upon  the  work  of  the  Spirit  as  the  decisive  factor. 
Indeed  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  imderstanding 
the  thought  of  this  passage  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  he  once  co-ordinates  water  incidentally  with  the 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  197 

Spirit.  Unless  one  is  horn  of  water  and  the  Spirit  he 
cannot  enter  God's  kingdom.  The  clause  would  fall 
at  once  into  harmony  with  its  context,  and  with  the 
deepest  principles  of  the  Johannine  theology,  if  the 
words  I'Saros  KOi  were  omitted  ^  as  a  later  sacramen- 
tarian  gloss.  Even  when  they  are  retained,  they 
cannot  be  assigned  any  primary  importance  for  the 
argument,  in  view  e.g.  of  the  fact  that  baptism  is 
elsewhere  omitted  (cf.  i.  12)  in  the  description  of 
how  men  become  children  of  God.  Baptism  is  inter- 
preted as  the  initial  act  of  entrance  into  the  kingdom, 
on  primitive  Unes,  but  the  Spirit  occupies  the  fore- 
ground of  the  argument,  and  it  is  no  longer  the  Spirit, 
as  in  the  primitive  ecstatic  view,  but  the  Spirit  as 
the  creative  power  of  God  which  produces  the  divine 
hfe.  This  is  slightly  closer  to  the  PauUne  conception 
than  to  the  teaching  of  the  sub-Pauline  theology, 
e.g.,  in  Titus  iii.  5,  where  it  is  argued  that  God  saved 
us  not  on  the  score  of  good  conduct — not,  as  John 
would  say,  by  the  flesh — but  by  the  bath  of  regeneration 
(Xovrpov  TraAi-yyeveo-tas)  and  renewal  by  the  holy  Spirit 
which  he  poured  out  richly  upon  us  through  Jesus 
Christ,  or  again  in  Eph.  v.  26,  where  Christ  purifies 
the  Church  by  the  bath  of  water  iv  pruxan.  The 
Fourth  gospel  assumes  the  outward  rite,  but  lays  all 
the  stress  upon  the  spiritual  attitude  to  God  through 
Christ  which  lends  value  and  meaning  to  it. 

{d)  It  is  a  parallel  conception  which  is  presented  in 
chapter  vi.,  where  again  the  vivifying  power  of  the 
Spirit  is  brought  forward,  this  time  more  promin- 
ently and  in  connection  with  eating  and  drinking. 
Here  it  is  not  a  question  of  sustaining  the  hfe  im- 

1  So  e.g.  Kirsopp  Lake,  Influence  of  Textual  Criticism  on  New 
Testament  Exegesis  (1901),  pp.  1    f . 


198  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

parted  at  baptism,  but  of  receiving  the  divine  life. 
The  metaphor  is  changed  from  birth  to  eating  and 
drinking,  in  order  to  bring  out  the  active  side  of  the 
relationship  on  the  part  of  men,  but  there  is  no  sug- 
gestion of  food  mystically  mediating  Ufe  eternal 
to  those  who  have  already  been  bom  through  baptism 
into  the  Ufe  of  God. 

There  were  three  elements  in  the  primitive  theology 
of  the  Lord's  Supper :  it  was  viewed  as  (a)  a  com- 
memoration of  the  sacrificial  death  of  Jesus,  which 
inaugurated  the  new  order  of  things  for  the  Church  ; 
{b)  as  a  medium  of  spiritual  union  between  the  hving 
Lord  and  his  people  ;  and  (c)  as  a  bond  of  brotherhood 
which  closely  knit  the  latter  together  in  the  mystical 
body  of  which  the  Lord  was  head.  These  elements 
are  not  separate  ;  they  are  connected  with  one 
another,  and  all  are  present,  more  or  less  distinctly, 
in  the  various  representations  of  the  Supper  which 
have  been  preserved.  But  the  emphasis  varies  :  now 
one,  now  another,  is  prominent.  In  the  theology 
of  the  Fourth  gospel  it  is  (6)  which  is  uppermost. 
We  can  feel  the  vibration  of  {a)  ^  in  one  or  two 
allusions  like  The  bread  which  I  will  give  is  my  flesh 
for  the  life  of  the  world  (vi.  51),  but  (c)  is  absent  from 
the  discussion  ;  it  is  on  (6)  that  the  writer  concen- 
trates his  attention.  Here,  as  in  the  relation  of  the 
Spirit  to  baptism,  the  prominent  interest  is  not  the 
social  or  unifying  conception,  but  the  inward  tie  of 
the  Christian  to  the  Lord  ;  the  corporate  aspect 
bulks  less  in  the  writer's  mind  than  the  individual. 
But  although  the  Fourth  gospel  omits  the  synoptic 
Supper,  probably  owing  to  its  eschatological  associ- 

1  The  sacrifice  which  preceded  an  ancient  sacramental  meal  was  not 
directly  present  to  the  Johannine  type  of  theology. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  199 

ations  in  part,^  it  restates  a  fundamental  idea  of  the 
earlier  view.  The  synoptic  words,  this  is  my  covenant- 
blood,  plainly  refer  to  the  blood  which  Moses  sprinkled 
on  the  Israehtes  (Exod.  xxiv.  8)  to  ratify  their 
covenant  with  Yahveh.  They  imply  that  by  His 
self-sacrifice  in  death  men  are  to  enjoy  the  long- 
promised  new  covenant  with  God.  His  death  is  not 
the  end  of  all  things  for  the  disciples  ;  it  is  the  begin- 
ning of  the  new  order  of  commmiion  with  God  in 
v^hich  the  highest  hopes  of  forgiveness  and  fellowship 
will  be  reaUsed  through  the  relation  of  God  to  men 
which  His  sacrifice  estabhshes.  This  is  corroborated 
by  the  other  reference  of  the  saying  to  the  Servant 
of  Yahveh,  of  whom  it  is  said,  /  give  thee  for  a 
covenant  of  the  people  {eh  SiadyJKtjv  ycvovs,  Isa. 
xlii.  6,  cf.  xlix.  8).  Here  the  function  of  the  Servant 
is  to  mediate  a  covenant  between  Yahveh  and  His 
people  .2  Such  an  association  of  Christ's  death  with 
the  new  covenant — which  cannot  be  emended  out  of 
the  text — is  sufficient  to  prove  that  the  bond  of 
communion  is  intended  to  unite  God  and  His  people 
through  Jesus.  This  is  the  primary  and  original 
sense  of  the  tradition.  It  is  in  Paulinism  that  the 
further  conception  of  unity  between  Christians  is 
introduced,  not  in  the  specific  restatement  of  the 

1  According  to  the  Fourth  gospel  (xix.  35,  36),  again,  Christ's  body- 
was  not  broken.  The  mystic  significance  of  this  did  not  harmonise 
with  the  earlier  praxis  of  the  Lord's  Supper  as  the  breaking  of  the 
bread  which  represented  the  Lord's  body. 

2  Note  the  LXX.  version  of  Isa.  liii.  11-12  (the  Lord  is  willing), 
SiKaiuiTat  S'tKaiov  e5  SouXei/ovra  iroWois,  Kal  rds  a/iaprlas  avrCbv 
airrbs  dvoiaei.  8id.T0VT0  avrbs  KXripovofiifjcrei  iroWoiJi  .  .  .  dvd'  Cby 
Trapedodrj  els  ddvaroy  i]  ^vx^  avrov,  where  we  have  not  only  the 
Servant  in  relation  to  many,  but  the  yielding  up  of  his  ^vx'n  on  their 
behalf  (see  above,  p.  146), 


200  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [cH. 

supper,  but  in  the  previous  context,  where  Christians 
are  viewed  as  the  body  of  Christ.  We  have  no  right 
to  read  this  back  into  the  synoptic  (Mark-Matthew) 
tradition,  as  e.g.  Wellhausen  and  Kattenbusch  pro- 
pose to  do,  not  even  although  the  element  of 
brotherhood  and  mutual  unity  in  the  Lord's  Supper 
reappears  in  the  hturgical  passage  of  the  Didache 
(9-10).  The  latter  tradition  makes  it  all  the  more 
strange  that  the  Fourth  gospel,  which  is  so  concerned 
to  emphasise  the  unity  of  Christians  through  their 
relation  to  Jesus  Christ,  should  fail  to  employ  the 
Lord's  Supper  as  a  symbol  and  sacrament  of  com- 
munion. A  partial  clue  to  the  omission  may  be 
found,  however,  in  the  so-called  Epistle  to  the 
Ephesians,  which  also  concentrates  upon  the  unity 
of  the  Church  and  yet  significantly  ignores  the  Lord's 
Supper  as  a  proof  and  symbol  of  brotherhood  (iv.  4  f .). 
There  is  one  Body  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  you  were 
called  in  one  hope  of  your  calling,  one  Lord,  one  faith, 
one  baptism.  The  Fourth  gospel's  distinctive  con- 
tribution to  the  theology  of  the  Last  Supper  is  an 
emphasis  upon  it  as  the  means  of  union  between 
Christians  and  Christ  who  is  the  imparter  of  the 
divine  Hfe  or  spirit. 

It  presents  this  characteristically  in  connection 
with  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  (vi.  1-14,  26  f.). 
Down  to  verse  51  (or  51a)  there  is  no  difficulty  ; 
the  homily,  in  Johannine  fashion,  represents  Christ 
as  the  source  of  spiritual  nourishment  for  believing 
men,  which  is  communicated  to,  and  assimilated  by, 
personal  faith.  /  am  the  bread  of  life  ;  he  who  comes 
to  me  shall  never  hunger,  and  he  who  believes  on  me  shall 
never  thirst.  .  .  .  I  am  the  living  bread,  descended  from 
heaven  ;  if  any  one  eats  of  this  bread  he  shall  live  for 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  201 

ever.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  difficulty  begins. 
The  following  intermediate  passage  down  to  verse  56 
(57,  58)  insists  that  eternal  life  depends  upon  eating 
the  flesh  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  man. 
Then  the  dialogue  explains  this  strange  language. 
To  prevent  any  misconception,  it  is  pointed  out  that 
the  food  is  the  heavenly  personality  of  the  risen  Son 
of  man.  It  is  the  spirit — i.e.  the  ascended  Christ — 
who  imparts  life,  the  flesh  is  of  no  use  whatever.  The 
words  I  have  spoken  to  you  are  spirit  and  life.  And, 
as  if  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  this  is  the  determin- 
ing and  crucial  thought  of  the  entire  dialogue,  Peter 
confesses,  Thou  hast  words  of  life  eternal. 

It  is  natural  that  the  middle  and  so-called  '  sacra- 
mental '  passage  should  have  raised  critical  suspicions 
of  an  interpolation  or  an  authentic  source  which 
has  been  worked  over  by  the  evangelist ;  but,  even 
taking  the  entire  section  as  it  stands  in  the  canonical 
text,  we  can  do  justice  to  its  theology  from  the 
historical  point  of  view  by  recalling  the  fact  that 
this  realistic  tendency,  against  which  the  author  of 
Hebrews  protests  (xiii.  9  f.)  in  the  name  of  spiritual 
Christianity,  is  carried  out  still  further  as  the  post- 
apostolic  age  proceeds.  By  the  time  of  Justin 
Martyr  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  Supper  effect  a 
change  in  the  bodies  of  the  participants  which 
guarantees  to  them  eternal  life,  very  much  as  in  the 
contemporary  mysteries.  Now,  the  Fourth  gospel  is 
sometimes  held  to  reflect  an  earlier  stage  of  this 
tendency,  and  sometimes  to  express  a  sympathy 
with  such  sacramental  views  which  is  hardly  recon- 
cilable with  the  author's  more  spiritual  standpoint. 
For  each  of  these  interpretations,  especially  for  the 
latter,  a  case  can  be  made  out.     But  there  is  good 


202  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

reason  to  hold  that  neither  is  adequate  to  the  entire 
synthesis  and  situation  of  the  Fourth  gospeL  What 
the  author  seeks  to  do  is  to  show  that  the  communi- 
cation of  the  Spirit  and  life  eternal  is  independent  of 
any  such  feeding  upon  the  Christian  deity  as  present 
in  the  bread  and  wine  of  the  Supper.  This  is  one 
reason  why  he  deliberately  omits  the  institution  of 
the  Supper  on  the  last  night,  and  why  at  an  earlier 
stage  in  the  gospel  he  as  deliberately  inserts  a  para- 
graph full  of  realistic  sacramental  language  in  a  con- 
text which  indicates  how  it  ought  to  be  taken.  As 
the  long  passages  of  table-talk  in  chapters  xiv.-xvii. 
plainly  indicate,  he  was  thoroughly  alive  to  the 
communion  of  Christians  with  Christ  and  one  another, 
which  shone  out  in  the  sacrament  from  Paul  to  the 
Didache.  But  we  have  no  clue  to  the  significance 
which  he  attached  to  the  Supper  in  the  praxis  of 
the  Church,  except  the  indirect  clue  to  be  found  in  his 
attitude  of  aloofness  towards  the  realistic  tendency 
of  the  age.  Among  the  mystically  minded  it  has  been 
usual  either  to  remain  indifferent  to  the  sacrament 
of  the  Lord's  Supper,  or  to  permeate  its  ritual  with 
an  inner  significance  of  their  own.  The  history  of  the 
Church  offers  instances  of  both  attitudes.  It  is  not 
possible,  however,  to  determine  the  positive  outlook 
of  the  Johannine  theology  upon  this  sacrament.  The 
probabilities  are  that  it  did  not  differ  essentially 
from  that  of  Paul  and  Luke.  According  to  the 
eschatological  passage  in  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch 
(xxix.  3  f.),  at  the  beginning  of  messiah's  revelation 
those  who  hunger  and  thirst  are  to  be  miraculously 
fed  in  the  latter  days  by  the  manna  which  is  again 
showered  from  heaven,  after  which  the  messiah 
comes  back  in  glory,  and  those  who  have  fallen 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  203 

asleep  in  the  hope  of  Him  are  raised  from  the  dead. 
The  Fourth  gospel  represents  the  living  Christ  as 
the  real,  spiritual  manna  which  is  to  be  enjoyed  here 
and  now  by  those  who  believe.  Thus  in  the  interpre- 
tation both  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  it  is 
the  Spirit  which  dominates  the  argument,  the  Spirit 
in  connection  with  the  personality  of  the  risen  Christ. 
Now,  in  the  Fourth  gospel  the  Pauline  antithesis  of 
flesh  and  spirit  is  conceived  as  a  cosmic  antithesis. 
The  world  or  Koa-fios  is  opposed  to  the  divine  nature, 
which  is  spirit,  light,  love,  and  truth.  But  the 
antithesis  is  not  left  as  a  metaphysical  or  moral 
dualism.  The  Father  loves  the  world,  and  his  love 
is  the  source  of  Christ's  mission.  Christ,  as  the 
Sent  and  the  Son  of  God,  has  the  Spirit  in  full 
measure  ;  He  possesses  the  divine  life,  and  mediates 
it  for  men  through  His  words  or  prjfxara.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  in  the  third  and  the  sixth  chapters  alike 
these  '  words '  are  put  forward  in  the  climax  of  the 
argument.  He  whom  God  has  sent  speaks  the  words 
of  God,  for  God  does  not  give  the  Spirit  by  measure. 
It  is  the  Spirit  which  gives  life  .  .  .  the  words  I  have 
spoken  to  you  are  spirit  and  life.  The  words  are 
semi-personified,  like  the  Spirit.  They  have  a  role 
not  unlike  that  which  Philo  assigns  to  the  logoi  or 
SvvdfX€L<s  in  relation  to  the  Logos  ;  ^  they  are  not 
utterances  or  words,  in  the  modem  sense,  so  much 
as  real  powers  of  the  divine  nature,  acting  on  behalf 
of  God  or  Christ.  Only  their  effect  is  not  repre- 
sented as  magical,  and  indeed  it  seems  to  be  in  view 

1  Cf.  M.  Goguel,  La  notion  Johannique  de  L' Esprit  et  ses  antS- 
ddents  historiques,  p.  103.  The  pTjfMara  of  the  Fourth  gospel  really 
stand  between  the  synoptic  \6yot.  of  Jesus  and  the  semi-metaphysical 
dwdueis  of  Philo. 


204  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

of  such  a  misconception  that  the  author  refers  to 
them  in  connection  with  baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper.  The  divine  hfe  which  the  words  express  and 
convey  is  conditioned  by  obedience  and  trust  on  the 
part  of  men ;  thus  only  do  they  taste  the  heavenly  gift. 

(e)  In  relation  to  the  person  of  Christ,  the  Spirit, 
according  to  the  representation  of  the  Fourth  gospel, 
occupies  a  position  different  from  that  of  the  synoptic 
tradition. 

The  birth-stories  of  Matthew  and  Luke  represent 
a  somewhat  developed  stage  of  reflection  in  their 
association  of  the  Spirit  with  the  personaUty  of 
Jesus,  as  compared  with  the  baptism-stories  (see 
above,  pp.  136  f.).  It  was  felt  that  prior  to  His 
mission  Jesus  must  have  been  invested  with  the 
Spirit,  and  at  the  same  time  that  the  Spirit  must 
have  been  more  to  Him  than  an  equipment  for  the 
messianic  vocation.  Matthew,  therefore,  like  Luke 
(i.  35)  and  Ignatius,^  ascribes  the  conception  of 
Jesus  by  his  mother  to  the  Spirit  (i.  18,  20),  while 
Luke,  who  is  even  more  influenced  by  the  apostoUc 
age  as  the  age  of  the  Spirit,  adds  that  John  the 
Baptist  was  filled  with  the  messianic  Spirit  from  his 
birth  (i.  15,  17),  and  that  his  parents  also  possessed 
the  prophetic  Spirit  (i.  41,  67),^  Hke  Simeon  (ii.  25  f.). 
The  Fourth  gospel,  instead  of  employing  the  idea  of 
a  virgin-birth,  emphasises  the  fact  that  the  divine 
Spirit  remained  upon  Jesus  at  the  baptism  (i.  32-33), 
a  touch  which  also  appears  in  the  gospel  according 
to   the   Hebrews,^  although   the   latter  apparently 

^  Ad.  Ephes.  xviii.  2. 

2  Also  i.  47,  if  the  Magnificat  was  originally  spoken  by  Elizabeth. 
5  '  When  the  Lord  had  ascended  from  the  water,  the  entire  foun- 
tain [the  Greek  original  KoXvfi^rjdpa  was  a  confusion  for  K6Xu/ij3ts   of 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  205 

omits  any  reference  to  the  dove-symbolism.  The 
Fourth  gospel  thus  develops  in  its  own  way  (cf.  iii. 
34-35  with  Luke  iv.  1,  14)  Luke's  emphasis  upon 
the  permanent  endowment  of  Jesus  with  the  Spirit, 
and  if  the  union  of  the  divine  Spirit  with  the  person 
of  Jesus  appears  superfluous  ^  after  the  incarnation 
of  the  Logos,  it  is  hardly  more  so  than  the  endow- 
ment of  the  Spirit  at  baptism  after  the  Lucan  explan- 
ation of  the  birth  of  Jesus.  The  logical  position  was 
to  argue  that  such  a  supernatural  being  did  not 
require  the  Spirit.  Justin  Martyr's  theology  reaches 
this  stage  :  We  know  it  was  not  because  he  needed 
baptism  or  the  Spirit  that  came  upon  him  ^  like  a  dove, 
that  he  came  to  the  river  {Dial.  88).  The  Fourth 
evangelist  might  have  taken  this  view  (cf.  xi.  42),  but 
he  retains  the  incident  of  the  Spirit's  descent  at 
baptism  as  a  sign  (o-T^/zciot')  for  John  the  Baptist ; 
it  had  not  any  specific  significance  for  his  own 
christology,  but  it  served  to  emphasise  the  superi- 
ority of  Christianity  to  the  contemporary  sect  of 
John  the  Baptist's  disciples  and  their  sympathisers 
within  Judaism. 

One  remarkable  feature  of  this  theology  of  the 
Spirit  in  relation  to  the  birth  of  Jesus  is  that  it  never 
associates  the  Spirit  with  the  beginning  of  a  new 

the  Spirit  descended  and  rested  upon  him."  But  the  original  of  the 
reference  is  probably  the  Enochic  (ilix.  8)  prediction  that  the  Spirit 
of  wisdom  would  dwell  in  messiah. 

1  Strictly  speaking,  the  Fourth  gospel  cannot  be  said  to  describe  the 
baptism  ;  it  is  only  referred  to  by  John  the  Baptist  for  the  purpose 
of  explaining  how  he  came  to  recognise  Christ. 

'  The  tradition  from  which  Justin  takes  his  previous  touch  of  the 
dove-Spirit  'fluttering'  is  reproduced  in  Od.  Sol.  xxiv.  \{Th€  dove 
Jluttered  over  the  messiah).  On  the  dove-symbol,  cf.  Conybeare  in 
Expositor  (ninth  series),  ix.  451  f.,  Cheyne's  £iWe  Pro6^e7?w,  pp.  83  f., 
237  f.,  and  E.  A.  Abbott  in  From  Letter  to  Spirit,  685-724. 


206  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

creation  in  Jesus  as  the  second  Adam  (cf.  Luke  iii. 
38).  According  to  one  rabbinic  conception,  the 
Spirit  brooded  like  a  dove  over  the  waters  at  the 
creation  of  the  world,  but  there  is  not  the  slightest 
hint  that  a  similar  idea  of  the  Spirit  as  the  presiding 
principle  of  the  new  order  occurred  to  the  authors 
of  the  gospels.  Had  they  shared  this  view,  they 
would  not  have  left  the  symboHsm  of  the  dove  in  the 
narrative  of  the  baptism.  Even  the  Fourth  gospel 
does  not  identify  the  birth  of  Jesus  with  the  incarna- 
tion of  the  Spirit  of  God.  According  to  its  theology, 
the  function  of  the  Spirit  in  relation  to  the  person 
of  Christ  is  to  inspire  the  utterances  which  reveal  the 
nature  and  purpose  of  God  (cf.  iii.  31-34,  vi.  63).  This 
corresponds  to  its  function  in  the  Church  (cf.  xiv.  26), 
which  deals  with  these  revelations  through  Christ 
as  its  material,  except  that,  while  the  Son  possesses 
the  Spirit  in  complete  measure,  Christians  simply 
receive  it  in  part  (iii.  32,  cf.  1  John  iv.  13).^  As 
for  the  functions  of  the  Spirit  in  relation  to  the 
indwelling  Christ  in  chapters  xiv.-xvi.,  they  are  as  im- 
defined  as  they  are  in  relation  to  the  Logos ;  in  the 
prologue  the  Spirit  is  absent,  in  the  rest  of  the  gospel 
the  Logos.  Probably  in  both  cases  the  idea  of  the 
Spirit  partially  coalesces  with  the  other  conception  ; 
the  latter  is  specifically  Johannine,  and  logically 
takes  the  place  of  the  former,  but  the  author  carries 
on  from  the  synoptic  tradition  and  Paulinism  the 
Spirit-idea,  without  definitely  explaining  its  place 
in   the   light   of   his   characteristic   categories.^    It 

1  The  conception  of  the  indwelling  Spirit  naturally  is  not  quite 

consistent  with  this  view. 

2  A  similar  difficulty  occurs  in  Philo,  where  the  conception  of  the 
Spirit  in  relation  to  the  Logos  and  Wisdom  is  also  uncertain. 


V,]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  207 

forms  one  expression  for  the  personal  religious 
experience,  parallel  to  those  of  the  Logos  and  the 
indwelling  Christ ;  but  the  writer,  like  Paul,  tends  to 
confine  the  relations  of  God  and  the  Christian  to  the 
Spirit,  grouping  under  the  category  of  the  Logos  the 
cosmic  and  providential  functions  which  in  Hebrew 
thought  were  subsumed  under  Wisdom  or  the  Spirit. 
The  contrast  between  the  amount  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  references  to  the  Spirit  in  the  synoptic 
and  Johannine  theologies  is  at  first  sight  remarkable, 
even  perplexing.  It  is  possible,  of  course,  that 
owing  to  its  messianic  associations  the  idea  of  the 
Spirit  may  have  occupied  a  larger  place  in  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  than  the  synoptic  records  would 
suggest,  and  some  critics,  e.g..  Dr.  Kattenbusch  ^ 
and  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott,^  even  argue  that  a  basis  may 
be  found  for  some  of  the  Johannine  sayings  on  the 
Spirit.  Thus  the  former  considers  that  words  like 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth  (iv.  24),  the 
Spirit  bloweth  where  it  listeth  (iii.  3,  8),  and  it  is 
the  Spirit  who  imparts  life,  the  flesh  is  of  no  use 
whatever  (vi.  63),  are  fairly  genuine.  *  Certainly,'  he 
adds,  '  Paul  did  not  go  beyond  his  master  when  he 
told  the  Corinthians  what  were  the  greater  xapla-iiaTa,^ 
This  is  true,  but  it  does  not  imply  that  Jesus,  e.g., 
must  have  used  a  term  like  the  Aramaic  Parklete, 
which  was  variously  paraphrased   by  the  synoptic 

1  Das  Aposiolische  Symbol,  ii,  674  f. 

2  The  Son  of  Man,  3618  S.  Titius  {Jesu  Lehre  vom  Reiche  Gottes, 
160  f.)  also  argues  that  if  Jesus  was  convinced  that  the  disciples  would 
share  in  the  future  glory  of  His  kingdom  and  life  (Mark  x.  45,  liv, 
24),  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  He  told  them  how  this  mediation 
would  be  effected,  and  that  the  conception  of  the  Spirit  formed  the 
best  Old  Testament  idea  for  «uch  instruction. 


208  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS         [ch. 

writers.  There  are  organic  correspondences  of 
thought  between  the  Fourth  gospel's  view  of  the 
Spirit  in  relation  to  Christ  and  some  elements,  un- 
connected with  the  Spirit,  in  the  synoptic  tradition. 
'  At  any  rate,  the  thought  of  John  xvi.  7,  which  is 
not  positively  developed  until  xvi.  13  f.,  seems  to  me 
to  be  too  great  for  any  one  except  Jesus.  This 
conviction,  held  in  spite  of  all  the  untoward  experi- 
ences of  the  preceding  days,  that  his  return  to  the 
Father,  so  far  from  interfering  with  His  training  of 
the  disciples,  would,  on  the  contrary,  carry  it  to 
completion,  appears  to  me  to  be  so  congenial  to  the 
dauntless  faith  and  humility  of  the  Lord,  and  so 
essential  as  a  link  in  His  conceptions  of  what  His  own 
end  and  the  end  of  the  world  implied,  that  in  spite 
of  the  silence  of  the  sjmoptic  gospels  I  must  attribute 
those  words  to  Him.'  ^  However  this  may  be,  the 
difference  between  the  messianic  Spirit  of  the  earliest 
tradition  in  the  synoptic  gospels  and  the  indwelling 
Spirit  of  the  Fourth  gospel  is  surely  too  great  to 
permit  of  us  reading  back  the  latter  into  the 
theology  of  Jesus.  It  is  an  interpretation  of  His 
person,  rather  than  an  utterance  of  His  own  faith. 

Instead  of  attempting  to  harmonise  the  synoptic 
and  the  Johannine  sayings  on  the  Spirit,  or  of  trying 
to  find  some  basis  for  the  latter  in  the  historical 
teaching  of  Jesus,  it  is  better  for  our  present  purpose 
to  recall  the  inner  significance  of  the  Spirit  idea  in 
the  Fourth  gospel.  What  it  lays  stress  on  is  that  the 
religious  value  of  Jesus  consisted  in  His  essential 
nearness  to  the  God  of  love,  the  eternal  and  sublime 
One  who  revealed  Him  pelf  thus  to  the  faith  and  need 
of  men.  This  absolute  significance  of  Jesus  is  repre- 
1  Titius,  Jesu  Lehre  vom  Reiche  Goties  164. 


v.]  THE  SPIRIT  OF  JESUS  209 

sen  ted  in  the  sjmoptic  theology  as  a  rule  by  other 
terms  than  those  of  the  Spirit.  The  Fourth  gospel, 
by  developing  the  Spirit  from  the  older  messianic 
sphere  into  one  more  congruous  with  the  Greek 
mind,  is  able  to  express  the  personality  of  the  risen 
Lord  in  terms  of  the  Spirit,  but  the  religious  content 
remains  imder  the  verbal  differences  ;  the  theo- 
logical evolution  from  the  naive  synoptic  view  to 
that  of  a  personified  hjrpostasis  ought  not  to  be 
allowed  to  obscure  the  identity  of  the  devotional 
instinct  which  really  prompts  the  more  complex 
statement.  This  instinct  still  moves  under  the 
influence  of  the  historic  Jesus.  It  is  the  incarnate 
Logos  which  furnishes  the  material  for  the  insight 
and  vital  energy  of  the  Spirit  in  the  community. 
He  will  take  of  mine  and  declare  it  to  you.  The 
theology  of  the  Fourth  gospel,  as  of  the  first  three, 
would  be  impossible  apart  from  the  historical  reve- 
lation of  God  in  Jesus,  and  equally  impossible  if  the 
life  of  Jesus  on  earth  had  exhausted  that  revelation. 
In  this  aspect,  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Fourth 
gospel  renders  explicit  what  is  presupposed  in  the 
eailier  records. 

It  has  an  important  bearing  also  upon  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  gospels  in  general  as  records  of  theology. 
Some  Jewish  rabbis,  in  the  second  century,  used  to 
attach  a  punning  significance  to  the  Greek  term  for 
the  gospel,  cva-yyeAtov.  It  is  just  'awon  gilion,  they 
said,  a  piece  of  blank  paper,  a  page  without  meaning 
or  value.  There  are  methods  of  treating  the  religious 
ideas  of  the  gospels,  within  as  well  as  outside  the 
Church,  which  render  them  practically  a  blank  page 
for  faith.  One  is  the  tendency  to  explain  the 
Christian  ideas  independently  of  a  historical  Jesus, 

0 


210  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

or  to  minimise  the  cardinal  and  creative  significance 
of  His  personality  for  the  beliefs  which  are  associ- 
ated with  His  name.  Another  is  to  confine  His 
religion  to  a  literal,  historical  reproduction  of  what 
He  said  and  did  on  earth,  identifying  Him  with  some 
eschatological  or  humanitarian  propaganda  of  His 
own  age.  Such  methods,  by  minimising  or  exagger- 
ating the  historical  significance  of  Jesus,  are  untrue 
to  the  standpoint  of  religious  faith  from  which  the 
four  gospels  are  written,  faith  in  the  living  Lord  who 
said,  according  to  the  Fourth  (xvii.  26),  /  have 
made  known  to  them  thy  name,  and  I  will  muke  it 
known.  Theologies  can  be  got  from  other  stand- 
points, but  none  of  them  will  be  a  theology  of  the 
gospels,  and  it  is  very  doubtful  if  any  of  them  will 
prove  to  be  much  of  a  gospel  at  all. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A  NUMBER  of  the  more  important  treatises  have  been 
mentioned  already.  The  following  is  only  a  selected  list 
from  the  immense  literature  on  the  subject. 

On  Mark's  gospel :  A.  Menzies,  The  Earliest  Gospel ; 
B.  W.  Bacon,  The  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story ;  J.  M. 
Thompson,  Jesus  according  to  S.  Mark;  M.  Goguel, 
L'^vangile  de  S.  Marc  et  ses  rapports  avec  ceux  de 
Mathieu  et  de  Luc ;  J.  Weiss,  Das  Aelteste  Evangelium ; 
Wrede,  Das  Messiasgeheimnis  in  den  Evangelien ;  La- 
grange, JSvangile  selon  Saint  Marc. 

On  Luke's  gospel :  Godet's  Commentaire ;  B.  Weiss, 
Die  Quellen  des  Lukasevangeliums ;  A.  B.  Bruce,  The 
Kingdom  of  God;  Colin  Campbell,  Critical  Studies  in 
S.  Lukes  Gospel. 

On  Matthew's  gospel :  B.  Weiss's  edition  in  Meyer's 
Komfnentar  (1898)  ;  Zahn,  Das  Evangelium  des  Mat- 
thdus ;  W.  C.  Allen  in  The  International  Critical  Com- 
mentary;  Klostermann  and  Gressmann  in  Lietzmann's 
Handbuch  zum  Neuen  Testament. 

On  John's  gospel :  Godet's  Commentaire  (fourth 
edition) ;  Westcott's  edition  of  the  Greek  text  (1908) ; 
the  editions  by  Zahn  and  Loisy  ;  J.  Drummond,  Character 
and  Authorship  of  the  Fouith  Gospel;  E.  F.  Scott,  The 
Fourth  Gospel  J  its  purpose  and  theology  ;  Wrede,  Charakter 
tmd  Tendenz  des  Johannesevangeliums. 

AlsOj  the  editions  of  all  four  gospels  by  H.  J.  Holtz- 


212  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

mann  in  the  Handcommentar,  by  Schanz,  Wellhausen, 
and  Merx  (Syriac  text).  Loisy's  Jesus  et  la  tradition 
primitive  stands  to  his  ^vangiles  Synoptiques  as  Monte- 
fiore's  Jowett  lectures  on  Elements  of  the  Religious 
Teaching  of  Jesus  stand  to  his  Synoptic  Gospels. 

On  the  general  study  of  the  gospels :  Wellhausen's 
Einleitung  in  die  drei  ersten  Evangelien  (second  edition) ; 
Burkitt's  Gospel  History  and  its  Transmission ;  Salmon's 
Human  Element  in  the  Gospels  ;  Von  Soden's  Die  ivichtig- 
sten  Eragen  im  Leben  Jesu ;  Denney's  Jssus  and  the  Gospel ; 
Batiffol's  Six  Lemons  sur  les  ^vangiles ;  Spitta's  Streit- 
fragen  der  Geschichte  Jesu ;  Streeter's  essays  in  the  recent 
Oxford  book  of  Studies  in  the  Synoptic  Problem, 
and  the  older  but  by  no  means  antiquated  volume  of 
Weizsacker'a  Untersuchungen  ueber  die  evangelische 
Geschichte. 

Keim's  Jesus  of  Nazara  (six  volumes)  is  still  the  most 
adequate  study  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  upon  the  whole,  in 
spite  of  its  critical  basis.  The  theological  aspect  is 
stated  from  different  sides  in  the  shorter  sketches  by 
Sanday  {Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Christ),  and  Earth 
{Hauptprobleme  des  Lebens  Jesu,  third  edition),  or  in 
Bousset's  Jesus,  Piepenbring's  Je'sus  historique,  and  at 
greater  length  in  N.  Schmidt's  Prophet  of  Nazareth^ 
O.  Holtzmann's  Life  of  Jesus,  A.  Reville's  Jesus  de 
Nazareth,  and  Count  D'Alviella's  L'£volution  du  dogme 
Catholique,  vol.  i.  Les  Origines. 

On  the  religious  ideas  of  the  gospels :  Harnack's 
What  is  Christianity  ?  with  Loisy's  reply,  L'^vangile  et 
r£glise ;  the  second  volume  of  Ritschl's  Christliche  Lehre 
vori  der  Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung ;  Wendt's 
Teaching  of  Jesus ;  ^  Batiffol's  Uen^eignement  de  Jesus ; 

1  The  second  German  edition  (1901)  has  been  slightly  modified 
under  the  influence  of  J.  Weiss,  as  may  be  seen  even  from  his  papers 
in  the  fifth  volume  of  The  Expository  Times. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  213 

Piepenbring's  Les  Principes  fondamentaux  de  VEnseigne- 
ment  de  Jesus  \  Garvie,  Studies  in  the  Inner  Life  of 
Jesus ;  Monnier,  La  Mission  historique  de  Jesus ;  Du 
Bose,  The  Gospel  in  the  Gospels ;  Jiilicher's  Gleichnisreden 
Jesu ;  Bischoff's  Jesus  und  die  Rahhinen ;  J.  M.  King, 
The  Theology  of  Christ's  Teaching;  G.  H.  Gilbert's  Revela- 
tion of  Jesus ;  Meinertz,  Jesus  und  die  Heidenmission ; 
H.  C.  King,  The  Ethics  of  Jesus;  H.  J.  Holtzmann's 
Messianische  Bewusstsein  Jesu ;  P.  Gardner's  Exploratio 
Evangelica  (second  edition) ;  J.  E.  Carpenter,  The  His- 
torical Jesus  and  the  Theological  Christ ;  C.  F.  Nolloth's 
The  Person  of  our  Lord  and  Recent  Thought;  Dunk- 
mann's  Der  historische  Jesus,  der  mythologische  Christ, 
und  Jesus  der  Christus,  and  Steinmann's  Geistige  Offen- 
harung  Gottes  in  der  geschichtlichen  Person  Jesu.  Also 
Wobbermin's  Geschichte  und  Historie  in  der  Religions- 
wissenschaft,  the  second  and  fourth  volumes  of  Pfleiderer's 
Primitive  Christianity,  Wernle's  Beginnings  of  Christi- 
anity, Drummond's  Hibbert  Lectures  on  Via,  Veritas, 
Vita ;  Hort's  Hulsean  Lectures  on  The  Way,  the  Truth, 
and  the  Life;  Dr.  E.  A.  Abbott's  indispensable  series 
Diatessarica,  with  its  eight  volumes  of  suggestive 
material ;  Dalman's  Words  of  Jesus,  Haupt's  Eschatolo- 
gischen  Aussagen  Jesu,  F.  Krop's  La  Pense'e  de  Jesus  sur 
le  Royaunie  de  Dieu  d'aprh  les  JSvangiles  synoptiques, 
Shailer  Mathew's  Messianic  Hope  in  the  New  Testarnent, 
L.  A.  Muirhead's  Eschatology  of  Jesus,  and  von  Dobschiitz's 
Eschatology  of  the  Gospels.  Father  Tyrrell's  posthumous 
Christianity  at  the  Cross-roads,  an  attempt  to  use 
Schweitzer  for  dogmatic  purposes,  suffers  from  a  tendency 
to  paradox.  The  first  and  third  volumes  of  Titius's 
Neutestamentliche  Lehre  von  der  Seligkeit  are  studies  in 
the  synoptic  and  Johannine  theologies  respectively ;  the 
latter  is  discussed,  with  special  reference  to  the  Logos, 
by  J.  Grill  in  his  Untersuchungen  ilber  die  Entstehung 
des  vierten  Evangeliums,  and  by  J.  S.  Johnston  in  The 
Philosophy  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The  christological 
problem  is  handled  in  J.  Weiss's  Christ :  the  Beginnings 


214  THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 

of  Dogmaj  Pfleiderer's  Early  Christian  Conception  of 
Christy  P.  Gardner's  Historic  View  of  the  New  Testament, 

A.  Robinson's  Study  of  the  Saviour  in  the  Newer  Light 
(second  edition),  B.  W.  Bacon's  Jesus  the  Son  of  God, 
and  Cheyne's  Bible  Problems,  from  one  standpoint ;  and 
from  another  by  A.  M.  Fairbairn  in  his  Christ  in  Modern 
Theology,  M.  Lepin  in  Jesus,  Messie  et  Fils  de  Dieu, 

B.  B.  Warfield's  The  Lord  of  Glory,  W.  L.  Walker  in 
The  Cross  and  the  Kingdom,  D.  W.  Forrest  in  The  Christ 
of  History  and  Experience,  P.  T.  Forsyth  in  The  Person 
and  Place  of  Jesus  Christ,  Canon  Sanday  in  Christologies 
Ancient  and  Modern,  Bishop  Gore  in  The  Incarnation  of 
the  Son  of  God,  and  D.  La  Touche  in  The  Person  of 
Christ  in  Modern  Thought.  Pfanmiiller's  Jesus  im  Urteil 
der  Jahrhunderte,  and  the  Hibbert  Journal  Supplement 
Jesus  or  Christ  1  present  various  facets  of  opinion. 

It  is  needless  to  enumerate  the  relevant  articles  in  the 
various  Bible  dictionaries  and  encyclopaedias,  or  the 
sections  in  any  standard  treatise  upon  New  Testament 
Theology  like  G.  B.  Steven's,  Holtzmann's,  Bovon's, 
Feine's,  Beyschlag's,  or  Weinel's. 

The  critical  attitude  to  the  gospels,  which  is  presup- 
posed in  this  volume,  will  be  found  stated  at  length  in 
the  writer's  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  New 
Testament  (second  edition),  or  in  Professor  Peake's  con- 
tribution to  the  present  series. 


INDEX   (a) 


Abbott,  E.  A.,  81,  94,  100,  116, 

146  f.,  161,  189,  193. 
Aboth,  Pirke,  98. 
Advent,   the  second,   44,   45  f., 

191. 
Angels,  37,  88  f.,  162. 
Apocalyptic  element  in  gospels, 

67. 
Apologetic  element  in  gospels,  3. 
Aramaic,  35, 152  f. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  35. 
Ascensio  Isaiae,  37-  165. 
Assuniptio  Mosis,  120. 

Bacon,  B.  W.,23. 
Baldensperger,  77  f.,  131. 
Baptism    of   Jesus,   31,   130    f., 

179. 
Baptism  of  Christians,  195  f. 
Baruch,  Apocalypse  of,  202. 
Baur,  187. 

Beatitudes,  the,  60,  73. 
'Beloved,  The,' 165. 
Birth,  stories  of  Christ's,  136  f., 

204  f. 
Blasphemy,  180  f. 
Browning,  95. 
Bruce,  A.  B.,  153, 180. 

Caesarea  Philippi,  106  f. 

Caird,  E.,  8. 

Canon,  effect  of  the,  30  f. 


Carpenter,  J.  E.,  119. 

Charles,  R.  H.,  160. 

Cheyne,  T.  K.,  39,  140. 

Christ :  meaning  of  term,  172 ; 
presence  of,  97  f.,  172;  revela- 
tion of  the  Father,  71, 109, 119. 

Christology,  9,  37,  etc. 

Church,  sayings  on  the,  32, 187  f. ; 
gospels  and  the,  15  f.,  37  f. 

Consciousness,  filial  conscious- 
ness of  Jesus,  110  f.,  130  f. 

Covenant,  the  new,  164  f. 

Creation,  85  f. 

Dalman,  137. 
Daniel,  156  f. 
David,  son  of,  163  f. 
Demonology,  50,  54,  120,  178  f. 
Denney,  173-4. 
Didache,  the,  200. 
Diognetus,  epistle  to,  129. 
Dobschiitz,  von,  84,  187. 
Dove,  symbolism  of  the,  205. 

Edujothy  51. 

Emperor,  worship  of  the  Roman, 

107,  166. 
Enoch,  book  of,  158  f.,  168,  205. 
Erskine  of  Linlathen,  109. 
Eschatology,  41  f. 
Eternal  life,  45. 
Ethics  of  Jesus,  47,  59  f.,  69  f. 
215 


216 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


Faith  :  characteristics  of,  9,  53  ; 

in  Jesus,  1 73. 
Family,  the  kingdom  a,  82,  92. 
Fatherhood  of  God,  99  f.,  112  f., 

121  f. 
Fellowship  with  God,  97  f. 
Figurative    element    in    gospels, 

78  f. 
♦Finger' of  God,  the,  179. 
Forgiveness,  doctrine  of,  120. 
Fourth  gospel,   5,   11  f.,   21   f., 

27  f.,  44  f.;  prologue,  169  f.  ; 

relation  to  synoptists,   24  f. , 

196,  etc. 
Francis  of  Assisi,  104. 
Freedom,  117  f. 

Glorifying  of  Jesus,  the,  160  f. 

Gnostics,  169  f.,  194. 

God,  as  Father,  68  f.,  86  f.  ;  as 

King,  91  f.;  titles  of,  99  f. 
'  Gospel,'  meaning  of  term,  37-8. 
Gospels,  rise  and  aim  of,  6  f., 

10  f.,  15  f. 
Gospel  of  Hebrews,  63,  204. 
Gospel  of  Peter,  100, 166. 
Gressmann,  159. 
Grill,  162. 

Harnack,  16  f.,  38,  111  f.,  131. 
Heaven,  kingdom  of,  63,  103. 
Herodotus,  135. 

Historical  Jesus,  the,  174,  209  f. 
Holiness  of  God,  100  f. 
Holtzmann,  H.  J.,  150. 
Holtzmann,  Oscar,  147,  181. 
Hooker,  38. 
Hope,  54. 
Hort,  174. 

Ignatius,  121,  192,  204. 
Immanence,  96  f. 
Irenaeus,  110. 


Jesus:  meaning  of  name,  171-172; 
messianic  vocation,  17  f.,  49  f., 
175  ;  sacrificial  death,  141  f., 
172;  teaching,  44  f.,  54  f.,  78  f. 

John  the  Baptist,  50  f.,  170, 
204. 

Joma,  100,  183. 

Joy,  114f. 

Judgment,  doctrine  of,  45  f.,  121, 
162,  176, 191. 

Justin  Martyr,  theology  of,  33, 
201,  205. 

Jubilees,  book  of,  167. 

Kattbnbusch,  166,  207. 
Keim,  14,  182. 
Kingdom  of  Christ,  64. 
Kingdom  of  God,  the,  53,  56, 109, 

etc. 
Kreyenbiihl,  28. 

Lagrange,  22. 

Law,  the,  134. 

Logos,  the,  28,  137  f.,  167  f. 

Loisy,  61. 

*  Lord,' the  title,  99,  165  f. 

Love,    brotherly,    105 ;      God's, 

106f.,  120,203. 
Luke's  Gospel,  14,  23,  73,  148. 

Macarius  Magnes,  116. 

Macdonald,  George,  98. 

Mark's  Gospel,  characteristics  of, 

5,  12  f.,  22  f. 
Matthew's  Gospel,  characteristics 

of,  13,  23,  63. 
Maurras,  C,  10. 
Mazzini,  89. 
Merx,  173. 

Messianism,  65  f.,  130  f.,  153  f. 
Miracles,  92  f. 
Montefiore,  125,  149. 
Mystery   of   the    kingdom,   the, 

43f.,  65. 


INDEX 


217 


Nature,  God  in,  93  f. 
Newman,  5. 

Old  Testament,  use  of,  9,  17, 

183. 
Omnipotence,  90. 
Omniscience,  86. 
Orerbeck,  2. 
Oxyrhynchite  Logia,  63,  98. 

Parables,  the,  19  f.,  43  f.,  55, 

123  f. 
Paraclete,  184,  190  f. 
Pascal,  7. 
Paulinism,    18  f.,    82,    128,    138, 

196,  199. 
Pentecost,  186,  187. 
Pfleiderer,  191. 
Pharisees,  53,  66. 
Philo,  28,  85,  128,  162,  169,  170, 

186,  188,  195,  203. 
Poimandres,  168,  172. 
'Power,  the,' 100. 
Prayer,  doctrine  of,  58  f. 
Prayer,  the  Lord's,  73,  100. 
Pre-existence,  26,  138. 
Proselytes,  195. 
Providence,  doctrine  of,  85  f. 

'Q,'  problems    connected    with, 
23f.,  25,  73  f. 

Rabbis,  67,  164,  206,  209. 
Ransom,  doctrine  of,  145  f. 
Redemption,  147. 
Repentance,  124  f.,  142. 
Resurrection,  72,  117,  161,  189  f. 
Righteousness,  the  higher,  103. 
Ritschl,  47. 

Sabbath,  the,  152. 
Sacrifice,  the  divine,  106  f. 
Schmiedel,  24,  181. 
Schweitzer,  41  f.,  127,  132,  175. 
Scott,  E.  F.,  58. 
Servant  of  Yahveh,  139  f.,  199. 


Sharnian,  H.  B.,  15. 

Shekinah,  98. 

Sin,  doctrine  of,  109  f..  114  f., 

119  f. 
Smith,  G.  A.,  107,  1-18. 
Solomon,  odes  of,  20j. 
Solomon,  Psalter  of,  139,  163. 
Son  of  God,  131  f. 
Son  of  Man,  20,  150  f. 
Sonship  of  men,  divine,  91  f. 
Spirit,  the,  177  f. 
Supper,  the  Lord's,  164, 194  f. 

Temple,  94  f. 

Temptation,  the,  88. 

TertuUian,  9,  33,  87. 

Text  of  gospels,  30  f. 

Theologj%  suspicions  of,  1  f., 
5  f.  ;  meaning  of,  38  f. ;  neces- 
sity of,  5,  8. 

Titius,  21-2,  92,  207  f. 

Traditions,  origin  of,  14  f. 

Transfiguration,  45,  145. 

'Truth,'  in  Fourth  gospel,  192 f. 

Virgin-Birth,    stories    of,    33, 

136  f. 
Volz,  57. 

Wedgewood,  Miss,  66. 
Weiss,  J.,  12,  42,  64,  142. 
Wellhausen,  9,  12,  49,  53,  75,  86, 

154. 
Wernle,  22. 
Wisdom,   conception    of   divine, 

166  f.  ' 
Wisdom,  book  of,  104,  133. 
Wordsworth,  41. 
'  Words '  of  Christ,  203. 
World,  the,  47. 
Worship,  103. 

Zealots,  the,  63,  66. 
Zechariah,  book  of,  163. 


218 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


INDEX    (6) 


Genesis  ii.  7,  p.  186. 

,,      xvii.  17,  p.  128. 
Exodus  xxiv.  8,  p.  199. 

,,       xxxii.  32,  p.  141. 
Job  xxxiii.  24,  pp.  147,  190. 
Psalm  ii.  7,  pp.  132  f.,  144. 

„     xlix.  8  f.,  p.  147. 

„    ex.,  p.  157. 
Isaiah  vi.  9-10,  p.  127. 

„     xlii.  1  f.,  p.  144. 

„    Hi.  13,  p.  160. 

„    liii.  lf.,p.  140. 

„    liii.  12,  pp.  146,  199. 

„    Ixi.  1-2,  p.  129. 

„    Ixvi.  1-2,  p.  94. 
Daniel  vii.  13,  pp.  158  f. 
Matthew  i.  21,  p.  172. 

„       i.  23,  p.  172. 

„       iii.  15,  p.  143. 

„       V.  34-35,  p.  94. 

„       V.  44  f.,  p.  104. 

„       vi.  13,  p.  72. 

„       vi.  28  f. ,  p.  93. 

„       vi.  33,  p.  103. 

„       vii.  21,  p.  72. 

„       viii.  16-17,  p.  140. 

„       viii.  20,  p.  153. 

,,       ix.  13,  p.  105. 

„        X.  19-20,  pp.  183-184. 

„       X.  23,  pp.  48,  87. 

„        X.  28,  p.  121. 

„       X.  31,  p.  86. 

„       xi.  4  f. ,  p.  80. 

„       xi,  11,  p.  50. 

„       xi.  12-13,  p.  51. 

„       xi.  19,  pp.  153.  166. 


Matthew  xi.  25,  pp.  90,  133. 
„        xi.  26-27,  pp.  110  f. 
„        xii.  16-17,  p.  141. 
„       xii.  18.  pp.  26,  144. 
„       xii.  28,  pp.  50,  178. 
„        xii.  32,  p.  179. 
„       xii.  40,  p.  72. 
„       xiii.  16-17,  pp.  71,  127. 
„        xvi.  13,  p.  150. 
„       xvi.  18-19,  pp.  32,  187. 
,,       xvi.  26,  p.  146. 
„        xvii.  24  f.,  p.  118. 
,,        xviii.  3-4,  p.  195. 
,,       xviii.  6,  p.  173. 
„        xviii.  18,  p.  187. 
,,        xviii.  20,  p.  98. 
„       xix.  26,  p.  90. 
„        XX.  28,  pp.  145  f. 
,,        xxi.  31,  p.  52. 
,,        xxi.  43,  p.  64. 
„       xxii.  41  f.,pp.  163,  165. 
,,       xxiii.  22,  p.  95. 
,,       xxiii.  34  f.,  p.  167. 
„       XXV.  31  f.,  p.  121. 
,,       xxvi.  64,  p.  157. 
„       xxviii.  19  f.,pp.  32  f., 
98,  156  f..  188. 
Mark  i.  1,  p.  135. 

i.  8,  p.  185. 

i.  15,  p.  124. 

ii.  1  f.,  pp.  77,  151. 

ii.  10  f.,  p.  120. 

ii.  28,  p.  152. 

iii.  5,  p.  26. 

iii.  20,  p.  182. 

iii.  29,  p.  179. 


INDEX 


219 


Mark  iv.  11,  p.  55. 

„  ir.  29,  pp.  43,  55. 

„  iv.  38,  p.  9. 

„  viii.  27,  pp.  20  f. 

„  Tiii.  31  f. ,  pp.  106  f. 

„  ix.  1,  p.  43. 

„  ix.  42,  p.  173. 

„  X,  14,  p.  26. 

„  X.  45,  pp.  145  f. 

„  xii.  34,  p.  52. 

„  xiii.  11,  p.  183. 

i,  xiii.  14,  p.  7. 

„  xiii.  31,  p.  48. 

„  xiii.  32,  p.  133. 

„  xiv.  21,  p.  143. 

„  xiv.  61-62,  pp.  136,  157. 

„  XV.  39,  p.  136. 
Luke  ii.  32,  p.  144. 

„  iii.  22,  pp.  31,  131. 

„  iv.  16f.,p.  129. 

„  vi.  46,  p.  72. 

„  vii.  29-30,  p.  90. 

„  vii.  35,  p.  166. 

„  X.  22,  p.  111. 

„  xi.  13,  p.  185. 

„  xi.  49,  p.  166. 

„  xii.  6-9,  p.  88. 

„  xii.  10,  p.  179. 

„  xii.  11-12,  p.  184. 

„  xii.  31,  p.  86. 

„  xiii.  31  f.,  p.  87. 

„  XV.  1  f.,  pp.  123  f. 

,,  xvii.  3,  p.  125. 

„  xvii.  15-16,  p.  92. 

„  xvii.  20,  pp.  46,  49  f . 

,,  xviii.  1  f.,  p.  73. 

„  IX.  42,  p.  183. 

„  xxi.  14-15,  p.  184. 

„  xxi.  28,  p.  69. 

„  xxii.  37,  p.  160. 

,,  xxii.  48,  p.  153. 

„  xxii.  69,  pp.  100,  157. 

„  xxii.  70,  pp.  136,  157. 


Luke  xxiv.  49,  p.  184. 
John  i.  If.,  pp.  169  f. 

„    i.  13,  pp.  33  f. 

„  i.  17,  p.  21. 

„  i.  18,  p.  139. 

„  i.  29,  p.  141. 

„  i.  34,  p.  165. 

„  i.  51,  p.  162. 

„  iii.  3,  pp.  195  f.,  207. 

„  iii.  13,  p.  160. 

„  iii.  14-15,  p.  161. 

„  iv.  24,  pp.  113,  207. 

„  v.  17,  p.  95. 

„  vi.  lf.,pp.  197f. 

„  vi.  51f.,pp.  198f.,  200f. 

,,  vi.  62,  p.  160. 

„  vi.  63,  p.  207. 

„  vii.  39,  pp.  188,  189. 

,,  viii.  34  f.,  p.  116. 

,,  viii.  44  f.,  p.  115. 

,,  viii.  56,  p.  128. 

,,  ix.  35,  p.  162. 

„  X.  17  f.,  p.  143. 

„  xii.  39  f..  p.  127. 

„  xiv.  1,  p.  174. 

,,  xiv.  16,  p.  189. 

„  xiv.  23,  p.  97. 

„  XV.  10,  p.  114. 

„  XV.  14-15,  p.  118. 

„  xvi.  7-11,  pp.  190,  208 

„  xvi.  9  f.,  190  f. 

„  xvi.  13,  pp.  192,  194,  208. 

,,  xvi.  14,  pp.  193  f. 

„  xvi.  16-17,  p.  189. 

,,  xvii.  5,  p.  138. 

„  xvii.  26,  p.  210. 

,,  xix.  35,  p.  199. 

„  XX.  22  f.,  pp.  186  f. 

„  XX.  27  f.,  p.  11. 

,,  XX.  31,  p.  3. 
Acts  i.  1,  p.  38. 

„  i.  3,  p.  194. 

„  i.  7,  p.  133. 


220 


THE  THEOLOGY  OF  THE  GOSPELS 


Acts  ii.  36,  p.  166. 

,,    vii.  56,  p.  156. 

„    xvi.  7,  p.  177. 
Gal.  iii.  16  f.,  p.  128. 

1  Cor.  ii.  8,  p.  120. 
„     vii.  19,  p.  23. 

„     vii.  26  f.,  p.  61. 
„     X.  16f.,  pp.  199f. 
„      IV.  3,  pp.  4-5,  142. 
„     XV.  6,  p.  187. 

2  Cor.  viii.  18,  p.  37. 
„     xiii.  14,  p.  33. 


Rom.  i.  4,  p.  138. 

„     ii.  20,  p.  134. 

„      xiv.  17f.,  p.  82. 
Col.  i.  13,  pp.  64,  82,  165. 
Eph.  i.  6,  p.  165. 

,,     iv.  4f.,p.  200. 

„     V.  26,  p.  197. 
1  Timothy  iii.  16,  pp.  36  f.,  191. 
Titus  iii.  5,  p.  197. 

1  Peter  i.  21,  p.  174. 

2  Peter  iii.  12,  p.  59. 


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